Despite the crisis caused by the shortage of chipsthese sold more than ever last year. This is confirmed by the Semiconductor Sector Association (SIA), with data that reflects that chip sales revenue rose 26% year-on-year in 2021 to reach 556,000 million dollars. A rise compared to 2020 more than remarkable, when revenue from semiconductor sales stood at 440,000 million dollars.
But although in 2021 chip sales were higher than ever, they fell short of existing demand, causing quite a few problems for sectors as disparate as electronics, computing or the automotive industry. In total, 1.15 billion semiconductors were sold throughout the year, but not enough. For this reason, the main manufacturers have already begun to take measures in the medium and long term to increase production, both with plans to build new plants for its manufacture and through purchases of companies dedicated to the development of all kinds of chips.
Intel, the world’s second-largest semiconductor maker, confirmed last January that its latest quarter revenue beat expectations by $1.2 billion. The company broke its own record for quarterly and annual revenue, while announcing its intention to build new chip manufacturing facilities in Ohio, adding to plans for new factories it plans to build in Europe. Of course, these plants will not support a growth in production in the short term, since they have yet to start construction, and it is unlikely that their works will start before the end of this year. In the best case, they will be ready in 2025.
amd also had a record 2021, while TSMC confirmed that in the last three months of 2021 it had had revenue growth above 10%. In addition, the latter has already announced that it plans to invest 100,000 million in three years (only in 2022 it will invest 44,000) to boost its semiconductor production capacity with new facilities, such as the Arizona plant that it is already building and in which it will invest 12,000 million dollars.
Semiconductor sales in December 2021 totaled $50.9 billion in revenue, up 28.3% year-on-year, and 1.5% from November. Total revenue from the sale of chips between October and December 2021 reached 152.6 billion dollars, 28.3% more than in the same period of 2020, and 4.9% more than in the third quarter of 2021.
John Neuffer, President and CEO of SIAstands out from these figures that «In 2021, with a persistent global chip shortage, semiconductor companies sharply increased production to unprecedented levels, aiming to meet their high and persistent demand, resulting in record chip sales, both in income and number of units. Semiconductor production demand is projected to increase significantly in the coming years as chips become increasingly embedded in current and future core technologies.«.
