Seven Top-20 1Q16 Semiconductor Suppliers Show Double-Digit Declines

[Daniel Nenni]

Qualcomm, Micron, and SK Hynix registered ≥25% drops, with total top-20 sales off by 6%.

This is from the 2016 IC Insights McClean Report. It is nice to see Apple recognized as a fabless semiconductor company and this is the first time I have seen all of the consolidated numbers from the acquisitions last year. QCOM I understand since they botched the 20nm Snapdragon. TSMC's Q1 we already talked about: https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/f302/tsmc-q1-2016-earnings-call-transcript-up-7654.html

MediaTek's big jump was nice to see. They are one of the most hard working and resilient companies I have worked with. I will see them again at the TSMC Symposium in Taiwan this month. Overall though I am much less optimistic than I was at the start of the year. Check out Bill Jewel's 2015 semiconductor market flat, 2016 looking somewhat better for a quick refresh.


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Qualcomm, Micron, and SK Hynix registered ≥25% drops, with total top-20 sales off by 6%.
IC Insights will release its May Update to the 2016 McClean Report later this month. This Update includes a discussion of the 1Q16 semiconductor industry market results, an update of the capital spending forecast by company, a review of the IC market by electronic system type, and a look at the top-25 1Q16 semiconductor suppliers (the top 20 1Q16 semiconductor suppliers are covered in this research bulletin).

The top-20 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O S D—optoelectronic, sensor, and discrete) sales ranking for 1Q16 is shown in Figure 1. It includes eight suppliers headquartered in the U.S., three in Japan, three in Taiwan, three in Europe, two in South Korea, and one in Singapore, a relatively broad representation of geographic regions.

The top-20 ranking includes three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and six fabless companies. If the three pure-play foundries were excluded from the top-20 ranking, U.S.-based IDM ON Semiconductor ($817 million), China-based fabless supplier HiSilicon ($810 million), and Japan-based IDM Sharp ($800 million) would have been ranked in the 18th, 19th, and 20th positions, respectively.

IC Insights includes foundries in the top-20 semiconductor supplier ranking since it has always viewed the ranking as a top supplier list, not a marketshare ranking, and realizes that in some cases the semiconductor sales are double counted. With many of our clients being vendors to the semiconductor industry (supplying equipment, chemicals, gases, etc.), excluding large IC manufacturers like the foundries would leave significant “holes” in the list of top semiconductor suppliers. As shown in the listing, the foundries and fabless companies are identified. In the April Update to The McClean Report, marketshare rankings of IC suppliers by product type were presented and foundries were excluded from these listings.

Overall, the top-20 list shown in Figure 1 is provided as a guideline to identify which companies are the leading semiconductor suppliers, whether they are IDMs, fabless companies, or foundries.

You can see a full PDF version here: http://www.icinsights.com/data/articles/documents/882.pdf

 

[benb]

Growth: NVDA (+15%), MTK (+12), AAPL (+10%), INTC (+9%). Negative growth: Hynix (-30%), Micron (-28%), QCOM (-25%), AMD (-19%). Flat: Samsung (0%).

How is foundry doing: Not good, TSMC, UMC, GF all down. Is it possible that after decades of growth, the foundry model has peaked?

IDM vs. fabless: The three growth leaders are all fabless. Which is interesting; how can foundries be doing poorly while the fabless customers of foundries are doing well? Some are doing well but overall the tide is going out; more losses at AMD (-19%) than gains at NVDA (+15%) for example.

 

[milesgehm]

I'm struck by the fact that INTEL had far and away the best growth in the top 10, but they are the ones laying off over 10% of their workforce.

With respect to "how can foundries be doing poorly while the fabless customers of foundries are doing well?" question, I think that it shows the fabless companies have the power. They dictate what prices they pay, whether to foundries or to their OEM suppliers of chips. Apple has managed to be one of the few companies that has really grown PROFITS from the smart phone revolution of the last ten years.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

I'm struck by the fact that INTEL had far and away the best growth in the top 10, but they are the ones laying off over 10% of their workforce.

With respect to "how can foundries be doing poorly while the fabless customers of foundries are doing well?" question, I think that it shows the fabless companies have the power. They dictate what prices they pay, whether to foundries or to their OEM suppliers of chips. Apple has managed to be one of the few companies that has really grown PROFITS from the smart phone revolution of the last ten years.

I really don't think this is a pricing issue as TSMC has very consistent margins. And remember, TSMC has very structured wafer agreements, they do not sell wafers on eBay. To me this is an industry slowdown driven by smartphones that we will see more of in Q2 2016 but hopefully less of in 2H 2016. My opinion.