Fifteen out of the top-25 fabless IC companies outperformed the total 2011 fabless IC sales growth rate of 4%, according to IC Insights. The top 25 players represented 80% of the US$64.9 billion in fabless IC sales last year, up 4pp from 2010, said the research firm.
China-based Spreadtrum was the star performer among the fabless IC producers in 2011, logging a 95% sales jump, IC Insights indicated. Spreadtrum supplies baseband processors and highly-integrated CMOS RF transceivers for wireless applications with over 90% of its sales to China-based customers.
Spreadtrum was ranked as the 17th largest fabless IC supplier in 2011, a jump of 50 spots in only two years, IC Insights observed. In 2009, the China company was ranked 67th,
Spreadtrum and ST-Ericsson are both heavily involved in the cellphone marketplace. In contrast to Spreadtrum, ST-Ericsson's IC sales dropped 28% in 2011 after declining by 9% in 2010, IC Insights said. The difficult times at ST-Ericsson led to a restructuring in March of 2012, and it is rumored that this was a prelude to eventually putting the company up for sale.
Eight out of the top-25 fabless IC companies enjoyed double-digit sales growth in 2011. The top-8 performers had combined sales of US$20.1 billion in 2011, up 29% from US$15.6 billion in 2010, IC Insights said.
It is obvious that these eight companies are now prime targets for IC foundries such as TSMC, GlobalFoundries, UMC and Samsung, IC Insights believes. The group's combined sales expanded by US$4.5 billion in 2011, larger than the US$2.4 billion increase for total fabless IC company sales.
Companies that registered double-digit sales growth in 2011 were Spreadtrum, Dialog, Qualcomm, MagaChips, LSI, MStar, Avago and Nvidia, according to IC Insights.
