Semiconductor shortages and COVID-19 have led to production disruptions and increased costs.
According to Gartner's preliminary findings, semiconductor shortages and the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted normal production by global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in 2021, but chip spending by the top ten OEM buyers soared by 25.2%, accounting for 42.1% of the entire market.
Masatsune Yamaji, research director at Gartner, said: "Semiconductor suppliers are shipping more chips in 2021, but OEM demand far exceeds suppliers' capacity. ”
The shortage of semiconductors has prevented OEMs from increasing production not only from cars, but also from all types of electronic devices, including smartphones and video game consoles. However, chip shortages have led to a significant increase in selling prices, which means that OEMs will spend much more on semiconductor procurement in 2021 than in previous years.
In 2021, the average selling price (ASP) of semiconductor chips such as microcontroller units, general-purpose logic integrated circuits (ICs), and various specialty semiconductors increased by 15% or more. "The semiconductor shortage has also accelerated double bookings and panic purchases by OEMs, leading to a significant increase in their semiconductor spending," Yamaji said. ”
Apple and Samsung Electronics have maintained their top two positions since 2011, and the two companies have swapped rankings over the years. It is difficult for Huawei to purchase chips, falling from 3rd to 7th in 2021. Other Chinese smartphone OEMs such as BBK Electronics and Xiaomi have significantly increased their semiconductor spending, successfully gaining the market share that Huawei will lose in the smartphone market in 2021.
Top 10 companies in the global semiconductor design overall potential market (TAM) in 2021 (unit: RMB 100 million):
Source: Gartner (February 2022)
Top 10 Global Semiconductor Manufacturers by Revenue in 2021 (in millions of dollars):
Source: Gartner (January 2022)
Huawei spent $15.382 billion on semiconductor procurement in 2021, $22.71 billion in 2020, $24.933 billion in 2019, $21.131 billion in 2018, and $14.548 billion in 2017.
According to Andrew Norwood, vice president of research at Gartner, revenue from Huawei's chip subsidiary HiSilicon Semiconductor plummeted from $8.2 billion in 2020 to around $1 billion in 2021.
In 2021, Apple maintains a leading position in the ranking of semiconductor spending customers. In 2021, Apple's spending on memory chips increased by 36.8% and spending on non-memory chips increased by 20.2%. However, by switching to in-house designed application processors, Apple has reduced the need for computing microprocessing units (MPUs).
In 2021, Samsung Electronics' spending on memory chips increased by 34.1% and non-memory chip spending increased by 23.9%. The increase in memory spending is attributed not only to higher memory prices, but also to growth achieved by Samsung in several target electronic device markets, especially the smartphone market and the solid-state drive (SSD) market.