Taiwan’s MediaTek ranks 7th among semiconductor makers in 2021

2021年半導體廠商台灣聯發科排名第7

MediaTek recorded US$17.45 billion in sales in 2021, a 58.8% increase from a year earlier

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Fabless chipmaker MediaTek was ranked the seventh largest semiconductor vendor by revenue for 2021, according to U.S. tech research firm Gartner.

MediaTek moved up one spot from a year earlier with US$17.45 billion (NT$483.25 billion) in sales in 2021, according to Gartner. It was able to capture 3% of global silicon market share in 2021, the research firm said.

Sales for the Taiwanese chipmaker grew by 58.8% in 2021 from a year earlier, beating the global average of 25.1%, according to Gartner’s figures.

Global semiconductor revenue in 2021 hit US$583.5 billion, surpassing the US$500 billion mark for the first time, Gartner said. “As the global economy bounced back in 2021, shortages appeared throughout the semiconductor supply chain,” said Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner.

“The resulting combination of strong demand as well as logistics and raw material price increases drove semiconductors’ average selling price higher, contributing to overall revenue growth in 2021,” Norwood added. Overall semiconductor revenue was also helped by the 5G smartphone market, with U.S. sanctions on Huawei resulting in increased market share for other Chinese smartphone OEMs and adding to growth for MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Skyworks, Norwood said.

Samsung Electronics regained the number one spot from Intel for the first time since 2018, Gartner’s data showed. Intel fell to number two in this year’s rankings.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) was not included in the Gartner rankings because it is a pure-play foundry, meaning that it only makes chips for clients, not itself. If TSMC were included, it would rank third by sales, according to Fortune.