Intel Still Top Dog on the Semiconductor Market in 2006

Although it has had somewhat of a long journey, with no pit stops, overworked and hungry for power, the Intel powerhouse made first spot in the 2006 ranking of semiconductor suppliers, says a study made by iSuppli Corporation.

The company keeps constant track of what goes on the market through the help of some "100 globally positioned electronics industry veterans". And they don't just look after one market, they pretty much keep track of everything that moves. This is the main reason for which their opinion is very important to a lot of multinational companies.

Their analysis of the semiconductor market in 2006 revealed some staggering facts, first of all being Intel's struggle to keep the top ranking position. Dale Ford, the vice president of market intelligence for iSuppli stated that Intel didn't do so good in 2006. "For US microprocessor giant Intel, 2006 was the worst of times, as its global semiconductor revenue dropped by 11.1% from 2005". He also said that: "The revenue decline, which was due to Intel's bleak performance in its core PC microprocessor and flash-memory businesses, erased nearly all of the company's sales gains from its strong year in 2005. Intel's 2006 revenue of US$31.5 billion was less than half a percentage point higher than its sales in 2004."

A big surprise and a round of applause for AMD's performance, they managed to leap from the 15th place to the 8th, with a 91.6% increase in revenue. This was possible due to AMD's acquisition of ATI and "strong gains in (Intel's) microprocessor share market". Also, big increases were seen for Hynix Semiconductor, Qimonda and Elpida Memory, all of these companies registering large increases in 2006.

I think that Intel's performance is somewhat questionable. How can a company which last year launched the Core architecture, and sold about 60 million processors in a three month period of time lose market share in front of AMD? And I'm saying this as Intel's processors were and are very well received by the general public. Maybe it's like a big train, once it gets into motion, it's hard to make it come to a complete stop without overturning it.