The revenue from the sale of semiconductors increased by 25.1% in 2021, to total 583,500 million dollars. According to Gartner, it is the first time that sales revenue has exceeded the barrier of 500,000 million dollars in three months. Samsung was the manufacturer that sold the most chips in the quarter, regaining the position held by Intel from 2018.
Its income from the sale of chips increased last year by 31.6%. Of these, those from the sale of memory rose by 34.2%. Intel, as we’ve mentioned, slipped to second place as its revenue grew just 0.5% in 2021, posting the lowest growth in the top 25 chipmakers list.
Memory was again the best-performing chip category in sales. Especially due to the increase in server deployments by large cloud providers to satisfy remote work and study, as well as remote leisure needs. Also due to the demand in the final market for ultraportables and computers. Segment revenue was $42.1 billion higher than 2020, leading to a 33.8% increase in semiconductor sales revenue in 2021.
Within memory, the best performing revenue was DRAM, with revenue growth of 40.4% in 2021, to $92.5 billion. This despite strong demand for servers and PCs leading to a shortage of DRAM supplies throughout most of the year.
Andrew Norwood, Research Vice President, Gartner, has highlighted that «As the global economy recovered in 2021, shortages appeared in the semiconductor supply chain, most notably in the automotive sector. Strong demand combined with price increases from logistics and raw materials pushed up the average selling price of semiconductors, contributing to revenue growth in 2021. The 5G smartphone market also helped drive revenue up , as unit production more than doubled to 555 million in 2021, up from 250 million in 2020«.
