Intel market share creeps up to 16.5 per cent

Last year saw Intel push rivals further out of world semiconductor market

Chip-making gargantua Intel took its largest ever bite out of the world semiconductor market last year, some 16.5 per cent of a total $306.8bn (£193.5bn).

That is according to final figures for the year from Gartner, which saw the overall semiconductor market itself also rise $5.4bn in the year, up 1.8 per cent from 2010.

Peter Middleton, principal research analyst at Gartner, said all the top 25 vendors grew their revenue compared to the semiconductor industry as a whole, taking the top 25's share to 69.2 per cent for the full 2011 year. About half of this growth came from mergers and acquisitions but Intel gained ground even on its closest rivals, upping its annual revenue 20.7 per cent.

"Of the major device segments, microcomponents performed best in 2011 after a relative underperformance in 2010," Middleton noted in a statement.

"Within microcomponents, the subcategory that really drove this performance was compute microprocessors, which grew 14.2 per cent year on year as a result of strong average selling prices (ASPs). This was driven both by servers and PCs, with the PC microprocessor market strongly benefiting from graphics integration."

Intel has been the number-one chip maker for 20 consecutive years, according to Gartner. Number two is currently Samsung, with an 8.9 per cent market share, which suffered from DRAM troubles in 2011. Toshiba is third, taking just 3.8 per cent of the market.

"[Intel's] previous high was back in 1998, when it controlled a 16.3 per cent share," Middleton added.

In other news, Intel holds its Solutions Summit next week in London. Some 400 resellers are reportedly expected to attend.