Intel is
leading the global chip market in 2011, with a commanding lead over Samsung
Electronics, according to Gartner.

Full-year sales
grew less than 1 percent to about $302 billion, largely echoing actual
statistics compiled by the Semiconductor Industry Association. Last month, the
SIA predicted 2012 growth would be 3.7 percent.

Intel, whose
microprocessors dominate the PC industry and also command the market in
advanced servers used for the cloud, should report revenue around $51.1
billion, up 21.6 percent from 2010, according to Gartner.

Samsung should
report 2011 revenue of $29.15 billion, up only 3.7 percent; followed by Texas
Instruments, with $12.08 billion, up 1.7 percent; Toshiba, at $11.7 billion,
down 5.4 percent and Renesas Electronics, at $10.7 billion, up 5 percent.
Renesas is the Japanese semiconductor giant resulting from the merged of the
chip lines of NEC, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric.

The other five
top chipmakers are Qualcomm, STMicroelectronics, Hynix Semiconductor, Micron
Technology and Broadcom.

The U.S.-based
companies have not reported full-year results yet but have not announced
guidance materially different than when they reported third-quarter results.

Gartner said
Samsung benefited from two major trends: its close supply relationship to
Apple, for which it supplies the A5 processor used in the iPhone 4S as well as
the iPad2 tablet, as well as its position in the NAND flash market. Flash
memory chips are growing in demand as traditional DRAM chips are phasing out,
according to a report in FoxBusiness.

A beneficiary
of the shift was SanDisk, the Milpitas, Calif.-developer of flash memory
devices for all kinds of electronic devices, Gartner said. Its 2011 revenue is
projected to have risen 33.5 percent.

 

By
Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]