Gartner Says Worldwide Wireless Semiconductor Revenue Surpassed $24 Billion in 2005

STAMFORD, Conn., October 12, 2006 — Driven by continued strong sales in mobile phones, worldwide wireless semiconductor revenue totaled 24.3 billion in 2005, an 8 percent increase from 2004, according to Gartner, Inc.

“While unit shipments for mobile phones exceeded 20 percent growth in 2005, price reductions lowered the revenue growth for application specific semiconductors,” said Stanley Bruederle, research vice president with Gartner’s Wireless Semiconductors and Applications Worldwide program. “The outlook for the wireless application specific semiconductor market in 2006 is stronger, in the range of 11 percent. The market will still be driven by mobile handsets, and specifically by a strong increase of 3G WCDMA handsets with higher semiconductor content.”

Texas Instruments extended its lead in the worldwide wireless semiconductor market, as it increased its market share to 19 percent in 2005. Qualcomm was the No. 2 vendor with 14 percent market share. Philips Electronics moved into a virtual tie with Freescale Semiconductor for the third position.

Table 1
Worldwide Revenue from Shipments of Total Wireless Application Specific (Millions of U.S. Dollars)

2005 Rank	2004 Rank	Company	2005 Revenue	2005 Market Share (%)	2004 Revenue	2004-2005 Growth (%)
1	1	Texas Instruments	4,514	19	3,834	18
2	2	Qualcomm	3,457	14	3,211	8
3	5	Philips Electronics	1,689	7	1,532	10
4	4	Freescale Semiconductor	1,662	7	1,546	8
5	6	STMicroelectronics	1,322	5	1,158	14
		Total Market	24,272	100	22,537	8

Source: Gartner Dataquest (October 2006)

In the hotly contested total subscriber power amplifier segment, which was reported in PA modules and front end modules, RF Micro Devices was the leader with 38 percent worldwide market share, followed by Skyworks Solutions with 27 percent share and Renesas Technologies with 15 percent share.

Additional information on specific market segments is available in the Gartner report "Semiconductor Wireless Communications Market Share". The report is published in an interactive format that allows clients to more easily track the segments that are of most interest to them. The report is available on Gartner’s Web site at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=496901&subref=simplesearch.

 

Contact:


Christy Pettey
Gartner
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christy.pettey@gartner.com


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