In advance of releasing a 200+ page Mid-Year Update to its 2019 McClean Report next in July, IC Insights on June 18 provided a look at the trends for worldwide integrated circuit (IC) company marketshare by headquarters location.
IC Insights' data showed that the market is currently dominated by companies based in the United States, with U.S. companies holding 52% of the the total worldwide IC market in 2018, followed by South Korean companies at 27%. The rest of the 2018 IC market is comprised of Japan at 7%, Europe and Taiwan each at 6%, China at 3%, and Other at less than 1%.
Looking more granular, IC Insights' data showed the U.S. had 68% of the 2018 fabless market and 46% of the integrated device manufacturer (IDM) market. South Korea held 35% of the IDM market, followed by Japan at 9%, Europe at 7%, and Taiwan at 2%. For the fabless market, following the U.S. was Taiwan at 16%, China at 13%, and Europe at 2%.
See IC Insights' chart below for the full breakdown:
Commenting on the IC market figures, IC Insights said:
"Overall, the South Korean and Japanese companies have an extremely weak presence in the fabless IC segment and the Taiwanese and Chinese companies have a very low share of the IDM portion of the IC market. Overall, U.S.-headquartered companies show the most balance with regard to IDM, fabless, and total IC industry marketshare."
"Driven by a surge in DRAM and NAND flash memory IC sales in 2018, the South Korean-headquartered companies—primarily Samsung and SK Hynix—registered a 26% sales increase, outpacing the Chinese companies by three percentage points last year. The South Korean and Chinese companies were the only regions/countries to grow faster than the total IC industry (14%) last year. However, with the memory market expected to show a huge 30% drop in 2019, it is likely that the South Korean companies will go from “first to worst” regarding IC sales growth by company headquarters location this year as compared to last year."
