Analysts discover that the Santa Clara company ended the year with 15.6%

Mar 27, 2012 13:48 GMT  ·  By

When looking at the state of the semiconductor market, iSuppli discovered something about 2011.

Apparently, Intel's overall chip market share was of 15.6%, quite a bit over the 13.1% of 2010.

In fact, it was the largest market share Intel has had during the last 10 years, which is really saying something.

Needless to say, the good sales of CPUs were the main factor behind all this.

“Intel in 2011 captured the headlines with its major surge in growth,” said Dale Ford, head of electronics and semiconductor research for IHS.

“The company’s rise was spurred by soaring demand for its PC-oriented microprocessors, and for its NAND flash memory used in consumer and wireless products. Intel’s revenue also was boosted by its acquisition of Infineon’s wireless business unit. The company’s strong rise helped it to stave off the rising challenge mounted by No. 2 semiconductor supplier Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., which had been whittling away at Intel’s lead in recent years.”