MediaTek Becomes World's No. 4 Fabless House in 2013

According to market consultant IC Insights, Taiwan's fabless house, MediaTek Inc., moved up one notch with revenue of US$4.5 billion in 2013 among the world's top-25 fabless IC supplier ranking to replace Nvidia Corp. as the world's No.4 , becoming the only Asian fabless IC house in the top-4.

In 2012, MediaTek held the fifth place while Nvidia was the No. 4 supplier, according to market consultant's survey. When incorporating the US$1.1 billion from affiliate MStar Semiconductor Inc., MediaTek's consolidated revenue of US$5.7 billion would make it the No. 3 in the 2013 ranking. Industry executives predict Mediatek's ranking to further rise in the 2014 survey since it completed the merger in February this year.

The top-3 houses are American suppliers Qualcomm International Inc., Broadcom Corp., and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD).

In terms of year-over-year growth, China-based Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. led the way in the ranking with a 48% surge, IC Insights' 2013 survey shows. Spreadtrum had sales of US$1 billion in 2013, securing the 14th place in the ranking.

MediaTek was ranked No.2 in year-on-year growth in 2013, up 36%. No.1 player Qualcomm grew 31% from 2012, to US$17.2 billion in 2013, for the third-best growth.

The top-25 worldwide fabless IC sales leaders for 2013 included 14 suppliers headquartered in the U.S., five in Taiwan, two in China, two in Europe, one in Japan, and one in Singapore. U.S.-based suppliers captured eight of the top 10 places and 14 of the top-25 spots in the fabless IC supplier ranking for 2013.

The five Taiwanese and two Chinese companies represented 28% of the 25 companies' total sales in the 2013 ranking. IC Insights expects an increasing number of companies headquartered in Taiwan and China to make their way up the top fabless supplier ranking as IC design houses located in the two economies continue to advance.

IC Insights noted that that there were 14 fabless IC companies in 2013 that had sales of US$1.0 billion or more, generating a combined US$55.5 billion in sales and representing about 71% of the US$77.9 billion worth of total fabless company IC sales last year. The top-25 fabless IC suppliers represented 81% of total sales produced by all fabless IC companies worldwide in 2013.

The company predicts the 7th ranked LSI Corp. and the 13th ranked MStar in the 2013 top-25 ranking to drop off the list in 2014 because the former is being acquired by Avago while the later was merged with MediaTek. Taiwan-based Phison Electronics Corp., which had US$428 million in 2013 sales, and Europe-based Lantiq Semiconductor, which had US$400 million in sales last year, are expected to move into the 2014 top-25 ranking. (KL)

2013 World's Top-25 Fabless IC Suppliers

2013 ranking	2012 ranking	Company	Headquarters	2012 revenue	2013 revenue	YoY Change (%)
1	1	Qualcomm	U.S.	US$13.1bn	US$17.2bn	31
2	2	Broadcom	U.S.	US$7.7bn	US$8.2bn	5
3	3	AMD	U.S.	US$5.5bn	US$5.2bn	-2
4	5	MediaTek	Taiwan	US$3.3bn	US$4.5bn	36
5	4	Nvidia	U.S.	US$3.9bn	US$3.8bn	-2
6	6	Marvel	U.S.	US$3.1bn	US$3.3bn	7
7	7	LSI	U.S.	US$2.5bn	US$2.3bn	-5
8	8	Xilinx	U.S.	US$2.1bn	US$2.2bn	5
9	9	Altera	U.S.	US$1.7bn	US$1.7bn	-3
10	10	Avago	Singapore	US$1.4bn	US$1.6bn	9
11	12	Novatek	Taiwan	US$1.2bn	US$1.3bn	11
12	13	Hisilicon	China	US$1.1bn	US$1.3bn	15
13	11	MStar	Taiwan	US$1.2bn	US$1.1bn	-11
14	18	Spreadtrum	China	US$725M	US$1.0bn	48
15	14	CSR	Europe	US$1.0bn	US$961M	-6
16	15	Realtek	Taiwan	US$836M	US$951M	14
17	16	Dialog	Europe	US$774M	US$903M	17
18	19	Cirrus Logic	U.S.	US$714M	US$772M	8
19	17	Himax	Taiwan	US$737M	US$771M	5
20	21	Silicon Labs	U.S.	US$563M	US$580M	3
21	22	Megachips	Japan	US$553M	US$577M	4
22	24	Semtech	U.S.	US$518M	US$555M	7
23	23	PMC-Sierra	U.S.	US$531M	US$508M	-4
24	25	IDT	U.S.	US$497M	US$475M	-4
25	26	Microsemi	U.S.	US$450M	US$433M	-4
Top 25 total			----	US$56.4bn	US$68.0bn	12
Other total			----	US$15.6bn	US$14.8bn	-5
Total fabless			----	US$72.1bn	US$77.9bn	8

Source: IC Insights