A Third of 2010 Chips Sales Covered by Top 10 Worldwide Brands

It seems that leading-brand companies managed to increase their combined stake in the worldwide semiconductor market, with sales of mobile PCs, smartphones and LCDs being the strongest driving forces.

[ADMARK=1]It seems that the combined semiconductor market share of the world's top 10 OEMs increased during 2010, by $26.3 billion, more or less, meaning a 33.7% jump over what was achieved during 2009.

HP led with 5.7%, followed by Samsung (5.1%), Apple (4.1%), Nokia (3.9%), Dell (3.5%), Sony (3.1%), Toshiba (2.8%), LG (2.3%), Panasonic (2.3%) and Lenovo (1.9%).

All in all, they covered over a third of semiconductor vendors' worldwide chip revenue, the sum being of $104.3 billion semiconductors on a design.

Most notable of them were PC makers like HP, Apple, Dell and Lenovo, each of which boosted their TAM (total available market) thanks to strong mobile computer sales.

Meanwhile, Samsung , Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic saw flat-panel TVs selling better, while Samsung also enjoyed a substantial increase in smartphone shipments.

Nokia, apparently, was the only one that had a harder time of it, though it still made number 4.

"Semiconductor device vendors should closely monitor the changing competition structure of the target market," said Masatsune Yamaji, senior research analyst at Gartner.

"Do not just listen to the requirements of the current market leaders. Have a dedicated sales team, with business development sales metrics, looking for new market entrants who will be the next-generation market leaders."

"Judging from purchasing TAM, Asia/Pacific, and especially China, offers the greatest opportunities in most of the device and application market segments," he added.

"It will be difficult for most of the semiconductor device vendors, especially replaceable general-purpose device vendors, to achieve the full design-win benefit without establishing a strong distribution network in Asia/Pacific," Yamaji went on to saying.

"Semiconductor device vendors must pay attention not just to the design and purchasing TAM by company, but also to that by region. This is the key to avoiding inappropriate sales resource allocation," Mr. Yamaji concluded.