Vendor Relative Industry Performance

Market share tables by themselves give a good indication of which vendors did well or badly during a year, but they do not tell the whole story. More often than not, a strong or weak performance by a vendor is a result of the overall market growth of the device areas 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.

Broadcom led the RIP ranking in 2008. In the consumer ASSP business, it benefited from solid performance in the core set-top box business, augmented by Blu-ray and digital TV products and the sale of digital converter boxes for the DTV conversion in the United States. In wired communications ASSPs, Broadcom padded its considerable lead over No. 2 Infineon Technologies. Ethernet switches and broadband modem chip sales sparked this performance. In wireless ASSPs, the company grew strongly in a declining market, mainly due to sales of connectivity products, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS.

Elpida Memory was the No. 2 vendor in Gartner's RIP ranking. Its strong performance in the ranking was because of its ability to add capacity in the DRAM market faster than the market declined, thus showing only a slight revenue decline in a market that saw strong double-digit declines.