Gartner: Semiconductor industry reaches historic level

12.12.2005
Worldwide semiconductor revenue will total US$235 billion in 2005, a 6.9 percent increase from 2004, according to preliminary results from Gartner.

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.