For years, Intel and Samsung Electronics have been battling it out to become the world’s largest semiconductor supplier in terms of revenue, as the cyclical nature of the memory chip market has repeatedly undermined the latter’s financial performance. Last year, Nvidia emerged as the leader for the first time, increasing its revenue by 120%.
Image source: NVIDIA
Gartner reported this last week, adding that Nvidia accounted for 11.7% of all revenue in the semiconductor industry in 2024, which overall grew by a moderate 21% to $655.9 billion. At the same time, while Samsung Electronics was able to hold on to second place and increase its own revenue by 60.8% to $65.7 billion, Intel lost its leadership position and slid to third place, limiting its revenue to a 0.8% increase to $49.8 billion.
The AI boom has benefited not only Nvidia, but memory suppliers in general. Their combined revenue grew by 73.4%, and South Korean SK hynix rose from sixth to fourth place due to revenue growth of 91.5% to $44.2 billion. As reported the day before, the company managed to become the largest supplier of DRAM memory precisely due to the high demand for HBM and its leadership in the corresponding segment.
Image source: Gartner
American Micron Technology, which also supplies Nvidia with its advanced memory, increased its revenue by 71% to $27.6 billion last year. In addition, Micron managed to rise from twelfth to seventh place in the Gartner rating. AMD, a competitor to Intel and Nvidia, fell from seventh to eighth place, with revenue growing by a moderate 8.2% to $24.1 billion. Apple, although it regularly becomes the most expensive company in the world, is content with ninth place in terms of revenue from semiconductor component deliveries ($20.5 billion), although it occupied eighth place in 2023.
The top ten chip suppliers collectively control 58.8% of the market revenue, so their influence is quite significant. All other market participants are satisfied with 41.2% of the revenue from semiconductor supplies.