Samsung’s managed to overtake the world’s favourite chipmaker, Intel, as the biggest semiconductor manufacturer globally. This is according to the latest The McClean Report published by IC Insights which investigates the state of the semiconductor industry and reports on its earnings.
Samsung’s proud domination
The report details Samsung’s rise as it sold the most semiconductors in Q2 of 2021. Overall, it managed to increase profits by a whopping 19%, “…bringing in a total of $20.29 billion in the April-June period alone. Of that amount, $19.26 billion came from integrated circuit (IC) sales, while the remaining $1.03 billion came from optoelectronic, sensor, and discrete (OSD) sales,” according to Tom’s Hardware.
Following Samsung, Intel only managed a 3% growth quarter-over-quarter which translated into a slightly behind the top, with $19.3 billion in chip sales. Further down the list, AMD only brought in a tiny $3.85 billion in Q2.
Samsung’s massive rise is interesting and apparently points to an increasing average sale price for machine internals like NAND and DRAM. This gave the tech giant a massive advantage seeing as Intel doesn’t ship RAM at all. Soon it’ll add its ARC GPU’s to its arsenal, however. For now, the South Korean company is shipping more parts and it shows.
It’s important to remember that Intel is still the longest-running chip manufacturer, so it’ll always have that throne. The mobile phone and consumer electronics brand’s newly placed crown may just indicate more focus worldwide on mobile SoCs. The last time it was in this position was back in Q1 2018, when the world’s major focus wasn’t as much mobile as it is today.