The overwhelming first place is the United States, the kingdom of ‘chip design’
Results of aggregated influence of semiconductor industry by countries around the world In the global semiconductor sales count by country, Korea ranked second with the overwhelming majority of memory semiconductors. Taiwan, a foundry powerhouse, ranked third following Korea. The first place was taken by the chip design powerhouse of the United States.
DigiTimes, a market research firm, recently released a report on the semiconductor industry for 2022 that contains such information.
The semiconductor market is largely divided into memory semiconductors and system semiconductors. In terms of sales, memory semiconductors account for 35-40%, and the remaining 60% is the system semiconductor market.
The United States, which ranked first, recorded sales of $273.9 billion in the semiconductor market worth $555.9 billion last year. This equates to 49.3% of the total market.
The US is particularly strong in system semiconductor chip design. Along with Intel and Nvidia, Qualcomm, the undisputed No. In the field of memory semiconductor manufacturing, Micron established itself as a major player and provided solid support for its dominance as a powerhouse in the semiconductor industry.
After Korea, the memory powerhouse and Taiwan, the strongest foundry
In second place is Korea. Korea took the second place in the world thanks to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which focused on memory semiconductor production. The total semiconductor market share reached 19.3%. DigiTimes explained, “Korea is trying to establish a position in the wafer fab field, which is an essential material for chip design and semiconductor production, in order to overcome the weakness of the semiconductor industry, which is limited to memory semiconductor production.”
Samsung Electronics of Korea ranked second in terms of overall sales by country, but if you look at individual companies alone, Samsung Electronics of Korea ranks first in global sales.
Samsung Electronics recorded sales of $73.2 billion (regarding 89.85 trillion won) last year, surpassing Intel ($72.5 billion) to rise to the top once more. Samsung Electronics’ sales increased 28% year-on-year, while Intel’s sales decreased 0.3% during the same period. The difference in market share between Samsung Electronics (12.3%) and Intel (12.2%) was 1 percentage point.
Taiwan, which is strong in chip design as well as foundry (semiconductor consignment production), which maintains the world’s No. 1 position, ranked third in the world with semiconductor sales of $53.9 billion. TSMC is at the forefront. This year, it plans to invest up to 40 billion to 44 billion dollars (regarding 54.3 trillion won) to establish a factory in Arizona, USA and Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, and expand production facilities in central and southern Taiwan. In addition, it is expected to start hiring regarding 8,000 employees this year.
In fourth place, semiconductor sales amounted to US$47.2 billion, with Europe accounting for 8.5% of the total. Europe, where NXP and Infineon are located, specializes in automotive semiconductors.
Japan, which once dreamed of becoming a semiconductor powerhouse, ranked fifth. Its total sales last year were $36.7 billion, accounting for 6.6% of the global market.
Europe, Japan, and China aiming to turn around by expanding investment
The influence of the semiconductor market in Europe and Japan is expected to grow further in the future. This is because Intel in the US and TSMC in Taiwan have announced that they will set up new outposts in Europe and Japan, respectively.
Intel has announced that it will invest 80 billion euros in Europe over 10 years. TSMC announced that it plans to invest 1 trillion yen (regarding 9.6 trillion won) to build a factory in Kikuyo-machi, Kumamoto Prefecture, and start production in December 2024. The Japanese government supported the TSMC plant to rebuild its semiconductor industry. The Japanese government plans to provide 400 billion yen (regarding 3.8 trillion won) to TSMC, which will build a semiconductor factory in Kumamoto.
The Digitimes explained, “The bad relationship between Japan and Korea seems to bring Japan and Taiwan closer to each other.” This means that there is a high possibility that the two countries will work together to keep Korea in check, a strong rival.
China has been chasing fiercely to enter the global top five. China’s global market share was 6.1%, close to overtaking Japan. DigiTimes evaluated that “China’s semiconductor industry started relatively late, but achieved remarkable growth thanks to government support such as the ‘Big Fund’.”
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