Fabless chip companies ranked by 2013 sales
China’s Spreadtrum led the way with 48 percent surge in sales year-over-year, followed by Taiwan’s MediaTek, Qualcomm of the US and Europe’s Dialog Semiconductor. All four companies are heavily committed to the mobile consumer equipment market.
The total fabless chip market was worth $77.91 billion in 2013, up by 8 percent from a value of $72.11 billion in 2012. The fabless sector grew faster than the overall chip market annual growth at about 4 or 5 percent and with the top 25 growing their sales at 12 percent while the remainder saw their contribution to the total shrink by 5 percent, it can be seen that the fabless chip market is consolidating even as it takes a greater share of the overall chip market.
Top 25 fabless IC suppliers ranked by 2013 sales.
The top 25 fabless chip companies for 2013 included 14 suppliers headquartered in the U.S., five in Taiwan, two in China, two in Europe, one in Japan, and one in Singapore.
There were 14 fabless chip companies with sales of more than $1 billion in 2013 the same as in 2012. In total, in 2013, the top 25 fabless IC suppliers represented 81 percent of total fabless IC company sales.
Fabless IC sales as a proportion of total IC sales 1999 to 2013. Source: IC Insights.
The 5 percent decline in the "other" fabless IC company sales figure was primarily driven by three acquisitions and a closure:
Volterra’s sales went from $168 million in 2012 to $114 million in 2013 due to its acquisition by Maxim in 4Q13; SMSC’s sales went from $250 million in 2012 to $0 in 2013 due to its acquisition by Microchip in 3Q12; Trident’s sales went from $160 million in 2012 to $0 in 2013 due to it being fully dissolved in 4Q12; Kawasaki’s sales went from $125 million in 2012 to $0 in 2013 due to its acquisition by MegaChips in 3Q12.
MegaChips was the only Japanese firm in the top-25 fabless supplier ranking. IC Insights expects an increasing number of Taiwan- and China-headquartered companies to make their way up the top fabless supplier ranking as IC design houses located in those two countries continue to advance.
In 2014 two of the listed fabless chip companies are expected to disappear; LSI being acquired by tenth-placed Avago and MStar, which is the process of merging with MediaTek. The two companies in-line to join the top-25 ranking are Taiwan’s Phison, which had $428 million in sales in 2013; and Germany’s Lantiq, which had $400 million in sales.
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