This will be the first time that the semiconductor industry has surpassed the previous record-setting year in 2000 when revenue reached $223 billion.
"Strong growth in the NAND flash market was a recurring theme in the 2005 market share rankings," says Andrew Norwood, research vice-president at Gartner.
"The continuing strong demand for flash card and USB flash drives in 2005, along with the successful launch of the iPod shuffle by Apple at the start of 2005 and the release later in the year of the iPod nano, will drive this device market to the highest revenue performance in 2005."
Intel remained the No. 1 vendor in 2005, as its revenue grew by 14.3 percent, twice the market average. In the previous three years, Intel's growth rate had been below the market average.
Intel's core microprocessor business performed in line with the overall company, with revenue from the desk-based CPU market showing positive growth, while mobile-based components experienced much stronger revenue growth driven by increasing shipments of mobile PCs.
Samsung Electronics continued to gain share, as it accounted for 7.6 percent of the market. Samsung now dominates most areas of the memory market, holding the Number 1 position in DRAM, SRAM and the fast-growing NAND flash market.
Hynix Semiconductor moved into the top 10 for the first time in 2005. In the NAND flash segment, Hynix's revenue is likely to reach $1.5 billion, up from $212 million in 2004, an increase of more than 600 percent.
"This success is made more satisfying for Hynix given the financial struggles the company has endured over the last few years," Norwood says.
One vendor missing from the top 10 this year is Philips Semiconductor, which held the No. 9 position in 2004.
"The Dutch company was pushed out of the top 10 for only the fifth time in the last 25 years," Norwood said. The last time the company did not make the top 10 was in 2000 when it was also placed in position 11.
The other years that Philips failed to make the top rankings were 1993, 1994 and 1995. "All these years have one thing in common; they were all boom years for the DRAM market, with this year being a boom year for NAND," Norwood says. "Philips has always kept away from the highly volatile memory market."
There is hope for Philips and Freescale Semiconductor, the other vendor to be pushed out of the top 10, to re-enter next year.
Two existing companies in the top 10, Infineon Technologies and Advanced Micro Devices (including Spansion), plan an IPO of their memory operations in the next 12 months.
In both cases, this would result in smaller vendors placed outside the top 10, allowing Freescale and Philips to re-enter by default.
While market share results provide a good indication of which vendors did well or poorly during a year, it does not tell the whole story.
Often, the performance of a vendor is based on the results of the overall segment growth of the device area that the vendor participates in.
Gartner's relative industry performance (RIP) index measures the difference between industry-specific growth for a company and actual growth, showing which are transforming their businesses by growing share or moving into new markets and choosing their customers wisely.
Hynix achieved the best RIP ranking by outgrowing its market by 23.4 percent. "The South Korean memory vendor accomplished this by moving into the fastest-growing memory market of all time - NAND flash," Norwood says.
"In 2004, Hynix had just 3 percent of the NAND flash market, but it is likely to see that share increase five-fold to approach 15 percent during 2005." Two other vendors in the wider top 25 rankings outgrow their industry-specific markets by more than 10 percent.
Elpida Memory and Advanced Micro Devices (including Spansion) have gained share in their existing markets.
Not all vendors did so well, as NEC Electronics and Infineon Technologies underperformed their respective markets by more than 10 percent and were placed at the bottom of the RIP ranking of top 25 vendors.
For NEC Electronics, it suffered from intense competition in mobile phone and data processing markets, as well as a more fundamental lack of strategic direction.
Infineon's poor performance was due to falling revenue in the communications market because of a decline in demand for its products from struggling BenQ Mobile, which acquired Siemens' mobile phone arm during 2005.
While the industry has reached new levels in revenue, Gartner analysts said major risks still exist for vendors.
"Semiconductor manufacturers need to watch the performance of their end customers ever more closely as a major part of the industry becomes increasingly tied to consumer spending patterns," Norwood says.
"The loss of market share in an end application, such as mobile phones, by a vendor customer can have a dramatic effect on the semiconductor vendor's business."
Gartner analysts said the performance of most semiconductor vendors this year can be traced to three major trends running through the industry: the participation in high-growth device markets such as NAND flash; gaining share in existing markets or exposure to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that have been winning or losing share.
"The first two trends are in the hands of the management of the vendor to set a clear strategy to take advantage of new opportunities, or to improve performance and to execute that strategy without distraction from everyday events," Norwood says.
"The third trend, being aligned with successful OEMs, is much more difficult to achieve. In an industry increasingly being driven by consumer trends and fads, this volatility in the success of equipment vendors is only going to get more extreme. The only approach a vendor can take is to make sure that it is not overexposed to one particular OEM or market."