IT Manufacturers' Semiconductor Purchase Grows 25% in 2021
Market research firm Gartner said on Feb. 2 that IT manufacturers' semiconductor purchases totaled US$583,477 million (about 706.42 trillion won) in 2021, up 25.1 percent from a year ago.
Apple took first place by purchasing US$68,269 million worth of semiconductors, an increase of 26.0 percent from 2020. Apple performed remarkably in the smartphone and PC business in 2021. The iPhone 12 and the iPhone 13 successively became smash hits. Apple is working on developing its own CPUs to replace the products from Intel.
Samsung Electronics came in second. Its chip purchases totaled US$45,775 million, up 28.5 percent from a year before. The Korean tech giant is the world’s largest producer of smartphones and TVs. It is also the No. 1 producer of memory semiconductors and No. 2 player in the foundry market. Samsung Electronics’ Device Experience (DX) Business Division purchases a large amount of chips from Samsung Electronics’ Device Solution (DS) Business Division.
China’s Lenovo and BBK Electronics nabbed third and fourth place, respectively. Lenovo’s purchases stood at US$25,283 million and those of BBK Electronics US$23,350 million. Their purchases grew 32.9 percent and 63.8 percent, respectively, from a year before.
Lenovo is the world’s No. 1 PC maker. Its CPU, GPU and memory purchases ascended. BBK Electronics markets smartphones under the Oppo, Vivo, and Realme brands. The three companies came in 4th, 5th, and 6th in the world smartphones. Unlike Huawei, BBK Electronics lowered other smartphone markers’ wariness about it in the smartphone market by running brands of different names.
Dell, Xiaomi and Huawei followed BBK Electronics. Dell’s purchases amounted to US$21,092 million, a year-on-year increase of 25.4 percent. Xiaomi and Huawei bought US$17,251 million and US$15,382 million, respectively. Compared to the previous year, Xiaomi’s purchases rose 68.2 percent, but those of Huawei fell 32.3 percent. Of the top 10 companies, only Huawei reduced its purchases. The U.S. government is restricting Huawei’s purchases of semiconductors.
Dell posted the second-largest share in the world PC market. Xiaomi is the world’s third-largest smartphone maker. Huawei may drop out of the top 10 in the smartphone market, but ranks high in the telecommunication equipment market. Like BBK Electronics, it spun off budget smartphone brand Honor. Honor is ranked 7th in the world smartphone market. If Honor’s sales are included in Huawei’s sales, Huawei can aim to enter the top five.
“Semiconductor makers shipped more chips in 2021 than 2020, but demand eclipsed supply,” Gartner said. “The average selling price (ASP) of semiconductors also rose. ASP of microcontroller units (MCUs) and general-purpose logic integrated circuits (ICs) among others swelled 15 percent on year in 2021.”