Fabless semiconductor companies outpace IDMs for long time

IC Insights have reported from its latest study the fabless semiconductor companies have outpaced Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDM) in revenue growth in all the years from 1999- 2012, except 2010. Here below is the latest analysis from IC Insights on comparison of fabless vs IDM Fabless company IC sales increased more than 3x the rate of the total IC market from 1999-2012. Unlike the relatively close annual market growth relationship between fabless IC suppliers and foundries, fabless IC company sales growth versus IDM (integrated device manufacturer) IC supplier growth has typically been very different (Figure 1). Except for 2010, fabless company IC sales growth has always outpaced IDM IC sales growth (or the decline was less severe). In 2010, for the first and only time on record, IDM IC sales growth (35%) outpaced fabless IC company sales growth (29%).
Since very few fabless IC suppliers participate in the memory market, they did not receive a boost from the surging DRAM and NAND flash memory markets in 2010, which grew 75% and 44%, respectively. Another reason for the relatively poor showing by the fabless IC segment in 2010 was that some of the large fabless IC suppliers like MediaTek and ST-Ericsson registered growth that was less than half t...