Global semiconductor industry revenue grew 4.4% quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter of 2018, reaching a record $120.8 billion, with growth occurring in all application markets and world regions, according to IHS Markit. Senior analyst Ron Ellwanger commented:
“Th
e explosive growth in enterprise and storage drove the market to new heights in the second quarter. This growth contributed to record application revenue in data processing and wired communication markets as well as in the microcomponent and memory categories”.
Due to the ongoing growth in the enterprise and storage markets, sequential microcomponent sales grew 6.5% in the second quarter, while memory semiconductor revenue increased 6.4%. Ellwanger continued:
“Broadcom Limited experienced exceptional growth in its wired communication division, due to increased cloud and data centre demand”.
Memory component revenue continued to rise in the second quarter, compared to the previous quarter, reaching $42 billion dollars. Ellwanger went on to say:
“This is the ninth consecutive quarter of rising revenue from memory components and growth in the second quarter of 2018 was driven by higher density in enterprise and storage. This latest uptick comes at a time of softening prices for NAND flash memory. However, more attractive pricing for NAND is pushing SSD demand and revenue higher”.
Samsung Electronics continued to lead the overall semiconductor industry in the second quarter with 15.9% of the market, followed by Intel at 13.9% and SK Hynix at 7.9%. Quarter-on-quarter market shares were relatively flat, with no change in the top-three ranking. SK Hynix achieved the highest growth rate and record quarterly sales among the top-three companies, recording 16.4% growth in the second quarter.
