Tech News
AMD knocked out of top-ten semiconductor rankings
By Stevie Smith
Nov 29, 2007, 11:04 GMT

Despite recent gains made by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a new semiconductor rankings list released by market intelligence specialist iSuppli has seen the California-based chipmaker drop out of the top ten while longstanding rival Intel Corp. holds fast and Sony Corp. surges on the strength of its PlayStation 3.

According to iSuppli, AMD’s revenue figures for 2007 will fall short of the amount needed to ensure the top-ten positioning that it carved for itself during 2006. While AMD’s 2006 acquisition of GPU manufacturer ATI Technologies helped the chipmaker to break into the coveted top ten (8) with revenue growth of 91.6 percent, iSuppli indicates that total sales for 2007 will shrink by around 22.8 percent, resulting in AMD’s displacement.

Conversely, market leader Intel Corp., which suffered revenue loss during 2006, is expected to fill that shortage and push forward with a 7.7 percent gain for 2007, which will see the company strengthen its leading share.

"Throughout most of the year, Intel successfully defended much of the market share that it won from AMD in the first quarter in the PC microprocessor segment due to the success of its lines of dual and quad-core chips," outlined Dale Ford, VP of market intelligence at iSuppli, in a TGDaily report. "This represents a major reversal of fortune compared to 2006, when AMD had the advantage with its popular dual-core microprocessors, allowing it to gain share from Intel."

Similarly, Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. is expected to experience a considerable revenue boost for 2007, with a 56.7 percent increase arriving on the back of Cell processor sales attributed to its PlayStation 3 videogame console, which was released to retail in November of 2006.

Outside of AMD, Dallas-based Texas Instruments is the only other top-ten manufacturer set to be notably hit by iSuppli’s predictions, which suggest the technology company is expected to lose around 3.4 percent growth when measured against 2006’s revenue performance.

The top-ten rankings for 2007, according to iSuppli, will emerge as follows (2006 positioning in parenthesis):

1: Intel Corporation (1)

2: Samsung Group (2)

3: Toshiba Corporation (4)

4: Texas Instruments (3)

5: STMicroelectronics (5)

6: Hynix Semiconductor, Inc. (7)

7: Renesas Technology Corporation (6)

8: Sony Corporation (14)

9: NXP Semiconductors (10)

10: Infineon Technologies AG (15)

11: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (8)