Samsung, Apple lead as top global semiconductor customers: Report

NEW DELHI: Samsung Electronics and Apple remained the top two semiconductor chip buyers in 2016, representing 18.2 percent of the total worldwide market, according to Gartner.

Samsung and Apple together consumed $61.7 billion of semiconductors in 2016, an increase of $0.4 billion from 2015.

"This is the sixth consecutive year that Samsung Electronics and Apple have topped the semiconductor consumption table," said Masatsune Yamaji, principal research analyst at Gartner.

"While both companies continue to exert considerable influence on technology and price trends for the wider semiconductor industry, their impact has lessened due to falling expectations for future growth," said Yamaji.

Although Samsung Electronics experienced intense competition from Chinese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in various markets including smartphones, LCD TV and LCD panel through 2016, the company increased its design total available market (TAM) and came back as the global top design TAM company in 2016 with 9.3 percent share. Apple decreased its design TAM in 2016 for the first time since Gartner started design TAM research in 2007, ending the year with 8.8 percent share of the market. The iPad did not sell well through 2016 and Apple also lost market share in the PC market.

Preliminary Ranking of Top 10 Companies by Semiconductor Design TAM, Worldwide, 2016 (Millions of Dollars)