Samsung posts $67.1 billion revenue to beat Intel, Qualcomm in reclaiming world's top spot in chip sales

Samsung Electronics Co. posted $67.1 billion in revenue last year to reclaim the top spot among global chipmakers, beating Intel Corp., which achieved $60.8 billion in revenue.

Both chipmakers saw a decline in their revenues compared with 2021 amid the slowdown in the semiconductor market. Samsung’s revenue fell 10.8 percent last year, while Intel’s dropped 20.6 percent.

Qualcomm ranked third with $36.7 billion in revenue last year, up 25.2 percent on-year.

The US IT giant benefited from surging demand for its application processors.

Last year, the worldwide semiconductor market reported record-breaking sales of $595.7 billion, surpassing $592.8 billion in 2021.

Although reaching an all-time high in sales in 2022, the semiconductor market shrank for four consecutive quarters. Revenue from October through December totaled $132.4 billion, an 18% decrease from the prior year.

The market for memory chips worldwide was also severely impacted, declining all year. It recorded $24.1 billion from October to December 2022, which is 52% less than the previous quarterly high of $46.5 billion set in July to September 2021.

According to Lino Jeng, DRAM senior principal analyst at Omdia, the sharp decline in sales in the memory market is due to a rapid decrease in information tech demand with the end of the pandemic, excess inventory due to record-high investments by memory makers, and macro economy contraction and IT demand slowdown due to interest rate hikes by central banks.