According to Gartner, Samsung Electronics and Lenovo grew the fastest, but design TAM decreased in 2015.

Gartner Inc., a global IT advisory firm, announced that Samsung Electronics and Apple maintained their positions as the world's largest semiconductor buyers in 2015, recording a combined purchase share of 17.7% of the global semiconductor market. The two companies purchased a total of $59 billion worth of semiconductors in 2015, an increase of $800 million compared to the previous year.

"Masatsune Yamaji, a senior researcher at Gartner, stated, 'Samsung Electronics and Apple have maintained the leading position in semiconductor purchasing metrics for five consecutive years, but Samsung Electronics' design TAM (Total Available Market) growth rate in 2014 and 2015 was lower than the overall semiconductor market growth rate.'" "Semiconductor purchases in 2015 by Samsung Electronics and Lenovo, which were evaluated as the fastest-growing companies over the past five years, declined, and the risk of a decrease in revenue for semiconductor chip manufacturers from major customers is increasing," it stated.

A Samsung Electronics model introducing the 'Gear VR,' newly released last year, at the Samsung Electronics Delight Shop.

In 2015, the total semiconductor purchases by the top 10 companies amounted to $123 billion, accounting for 36.9% of the revenue of global semiconductor chip manufacturers. This figure represents a decline compared to 37.9% in 2014 and is a more serious result than the 1.9% decline in the global semiconductor market this year compared to the previous year.

Slowing Growth in Personal Electronics Market, Potential Decline in Semiconductor Companies' Profits

The market decline was partly attributed to HP's spin-off of its enterprise business, which caused Toshiba to fall out of the top 10 indicators. Toshiba's design TAM in 2015 totaled $4.6 billion. The total semiconductor purchases this year by the top 10 companies (including HP, HPE, and Toshiba) in 2014, based on design TAM, reached $127.6 billion. This accounts for 38.2% of the revenue of global semiconductor chip manufacturers.


  ▲ Table. Estimated Purchase Values by Top 10 Global Semiconductor Design TAM Companies in 2015 (Unit: Million USD)

As the growth of the personal electronics market continues to slow, the likelihood of declining revenue for semiconductor chip manufacturers from major customers has increased. Most general-purpose semiconductor chip manufacturers are reducing their dependence on a small number of mega-customers, such as Samsung Electronics, Apple, and Lenovo. Furthermore, to stabilize business growth, they are diversifying their sales targets to segmented, smaller "long-tail" customers by utilizing mass marketing strategies.

Researcher Yamaji stated, "Nine of the top companies in Design TAM in 2014 remained in the 2015 indicators. However, it was found that semiconductor demand decreased for seven of these companies in 2015. The slowdown in Samsung Electronics' Design TAM since 2014 should be recognized as a very significant change." "As the growth bubble of electronic devices and their life cycles shorten, it will become increasingly difficult for top companies to maintain strong performance going forward. There is no guarantee that current winners will continue to lead the market," they stated.