Intel Remains World's Largest Chip Producer as AMD Enters Top 15

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AMD was No. 11 semiconductor company in Q1 2021.

Intel
(Image credit: Intel)

While Intel's revenue dropped in the first quarter, it is still the world's largest supplier of chips by revenue, ahead of Samsung and TSMC, according to IC Insights. Intel's arch-rival AMD significantly increased its sales in Q1 2021 and is now one of the world's Top 15 semiconductor companies. 

Demand for personal computers and chips grew significantly in the recent quarters, so it is not surprising that the sales of the top 15 semiconductor companies increased by 21% year-over-year in Q1 2021. Intel leads the market with $18.676 billion, yet its semiconductor sales were 4% lower than in the first quarter last year. Samsung followed Intel with $16.152 billion, whereas TSMC was No. 3 with $12.911 billion. 

Samsung, which is the world's largest supplier of 3D NAND and DRAM memory, has been challenging Intel for the top position on the market of chips for years. At times, Samsung can dethrone Intel when memory prices are on the rise, but it was not the case in Q1 2021. 

(Image credit: IC Insights)

AMD and MediaTek were two new entrants to the top 15 list of semiconductor companies. AMD significantly increased shipments of its CPUs for servers and high-performance desktops, so its revenue in the first quarter totalled $3.445 billion, up 93% year-over-year. In Q1 2021 AMD was ranked 11th largest semiconductor company in the world. The company was ranked 18 in the first quarter 2020. MediaTek's sales reached $3.849 billion, an increase of 90% year-over-year. AMD and MediaTek replaced Huawei's HiSilicon and Sony's chip division in Top 15. 

The list of top 15 semiconductor sales leaders includes CPU, GPU, and SoC developers, makers of memory, suppliers of special-purpose chips, telecom giants, and contract makers of semiconductors. The list includes eight companies headquartered in the U.S., two firms from South Korea, Taiwan and Europe, and one from Japan.

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Kamen Rider Blade
    AMD is doing well, jumping from 18th to 11th place in 1 year.

    At this rate, they'll catch up to nVIDIA eventually.
    Reply
  • mrv_co
    How is 'producer' defined for this list? Isn't AMD 'fabless'?
    Reply
  • vern72
    mrv_co said:
    How is 'producer' defined for this list? Isn't AMD 'fabless'?

    I was about to say the exact same thing.
    Reply
  • shady28
    AMD doesn't make chips. They're basically double-dipping by counting AMD and TSMC in the same chart.
    Reply
  • Co BIY
    shady28 said:
    AMD doesn't make chips. They're basically double-dipping by counting AMD and TSMC in the same chart.

    TSMC is a unique animal that wouldn't fit neatly on any chart. It's revenues are "double counted" with regards to almost all of the other companies on that list including Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Apple because they are all large customers of TSMC.

    Nvidia, Qualcomm and IBM buy foundry services at Samsung. "Double counted" also.

    This chart by sales revenue is interesting in showing the comparative market importance of these companies but it is a very complicated ecosystem.
    Reply
  • hotaru.hino
    From the report itself:

    IC Insights includes foundries in the top-15semiconductor supplier ranking since it has always viewed the ranking as a top supplier list, not a marketshare ranking, and realizes that in some cases the semiconductor sales are double counted.

    So yes, TSMC is being double counted.
    Reply
  • escksu
    Well, for those who keeps thinking Intel is dead, think again...this chart shows just how far ahead Intel is compared to AMD. So, despite all the performance and adoption of Ryzen CPUs or whatever you have read, its just chipping away Intel's market share. The DIY market is just a tiny segment of the entire PC market. OEM like Dell, Lenono and HP is Intel has the volume.
    Reply
  • Dragonking_1
    escksu said:
    Well, for those who keeps thinking Intel is dead, think again...this chart shows just how far ahead Intel is compared to AMD. So, despite all the performance and adoption of Ryzen CPUs or whatever you have read, its just chipping away Intel's market share. The DIY market is just a tiny segment of the entire PC market. OEM like Dell, Lenono and HP is Intel has the volume.

    You cannot count Intel out of race for sure. That was probably never an issue of contention, I think, but yeah, many people did not realise the sheer size of Intel. The issue was Intel being able to ramp up its R&D and produce viable results and compete with AMD on the new footing. With AMD showing consumers a taste of lower cost (at least upto Ryzen 3000 series) and power/performance ratio, we need Intel to get back into the groove and start innovating like it once used to do and not stagnate. Also true for the Enterprise space. This is important for so many more reasons that just volume sales to OEM I mean.

    And you can only chip away the health of a giant. It doesn't matter to AMD if its the top chip maker. What matters to it, is increasing its revenue in the end. To compete with Intel is just a way for that. And with ARM looking to venture more into the space, its gonna be great, I can only presume.

    The world is moving really fast towards so much more now. I am looking forward to Intel's debut into dGPU's next. A possible 3-way competition in graphic cards -- gonna be epic. I wish there was a solid contender to nVidia's workstation graphics. AMD is nowhere in that space still. Only if Intel can show up there in a few years.
    Reply
  • hotaru.hino
    escksu said:
    Well, for those who keeps thinking Intel is dead, think again...this chart shows just how far ahead Intel is compared to AMD. So, despite all the performance and adoption of Ryzen CPUs or whatever you have read, its just chipping away Intel's market share. The DIY market is just a tiny segment of the entire PC market. OEM like Dell, Lenono and HP is Intel has the volume.
    People also seem to think Intel only makes CPUs and motherboard chipsets.

    They also make storage solutions, networking chips, FPGAs, and... well enough to fill that "Products" drop down menu they have on their website.
    Reply