The semiconductor industry achieved 12 percent sequential growth in revenue to $113.9 billion in the third quarter of 2017, according to IHS Markit.
The global semiconductor industry revenue is anticipated to grow at 21 percent in 2017 to $428.9 billion as memory prices remain high and the wireless market continues to see strong demand in the fourth quarter.
Semiconductor revenue from wireless applications was $34.8 billion, representing nearly 31 percent of the total semiconductor market.
Wireless applications revenue will reach $37.5 billion in Q4 and more than $131 billion in 2017.
Brad Shaffer, senior analyst for wireless semiconductors and applications at IHS Markit, said top-end smartphones have increasing amounts of memory and storage. The radio frequency content in these smartphones has grown considerably over the past few product generations, with many high-end smartphones now supporting gigabit LTE mobile broadband speeds.
The DRAM industry revenue was $19.8 billion in revenue.
Mike Howard, director for DRAM memory and storage research at IHS Markit, said that prices and shipments were up during the quarter as strong demand for mobile and server DRAM continued to propel the market.
The NAND industry revenue rose 12.9 percent to $14.2 billion. “Pricing was flat in the quarter, as seasonally strong demand driven by the mobile and solid-state drive segments was able to offset moderate shipment growth,” said Walter Coon, director for NAND flash technology research at IHS Markit.
“The market is expected to soften exiting 2017 and into early next year, as the industry transition to 3D NAND technology continues to progress and the market enters a traditionally slower demand period,” Walter Coon said.
Samsung has overtaken Intel to become the number-one semiconductor supplier in the world in the third quarter of 2017, growing 14.9 percent sequentially.
Intel now comes in at number two, with SK Hynix securing the third rank in terms of semiconductor revenue for the third quarter.
Apple and AMD achieved the highest revenue growth quarter over quarter by 46.6 percent and 34.3 percent, respectively.
Qualcomm surpassed Broadcom to secure the number-five spot.
nVidia made its way into the top 10 ranking for the first time ever.
