Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), the world's largest semiconductor supplier, has extended its lead over rival Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD), raising its market share to 12.5 percent while AMD dropped out of the top 10. Intel's revenues are expected to rise by almost 8 percent in 2007, far exceeding the growth rate of the entire industry, which iSuppli pegs at around 4 percent.
AMD, on the other hand, has had a rough go of it this year. While making the top 10 list for the first time last year, AMD is looking at a forecast of sales down almost 23 percent.
"Throughout most of the year, Intel successfully defended much of the market share that it won from AMD in the first quarter in the PC microprocessor segment due to the success of its lines of dual- and quad-core chips," said Dale Ford, vice president, market intelligence, for iSuppli. "This represents a major reversal of fortune compared to 2006, when AMD had the advantage with its popular dual-core microprocessors, allowing it to gain share from Intel.
Other interesting facts:
- Sony (NYSE: SNE) is experiencing tremendous growth of over 50% in its semiconductor business, based nearly all on the success of the PlayStation 3 video-game console.
- While Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM)'s increase of 23.7 percent is entirely due to a surge in sales of semiconductors for mobile handsets and infrastructure, Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXI), which sells a ton of wireless equipment, saw a decline in its wireless semi revenue of 3.4% in 2007.
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