The world's top-15 semiconductor companies are forecast to see their combined sales increase 13% in 2020, slightly more than twice the expected total worldwide semiconductor industry growth of 6%, according to IC Insights.

In contrast, the top-15 semiconductor suppliers registered a collective 15% decline in sales last year, said IC Insights. All of the top-15 companies are forecast to have semiconductor sales of at least US$9.5 billion in 2020.

The semiconductor industry has been one of the most resilient markets during this coronavirus plagued year, IC Insights indicated. Although causing a deep global recession in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spurred an acceleration of the worldwide digital transformation resulting in remarkably robust semiconductor market growth.

Seven of the top-15 semiconductor suppliers are forecast to see their sales jump by 22% or more in 2020, Nvidia expected to post a huge 50% surge, IC Insights said.

IC Insights noted that there are expected to be two new entrants into the top-15 semiconductor sales ranking for 2020 - MediaTek and AMD, with these companies forecast to register strong sales increases of 35% and 41%, respectively. MediaTek is expected to jump up five spots to 11th place while AMD is forecast to move up three positions to 15th this year.

In addition, IC Insights believes that Apple's custom ICs will have an equivalent "sales value" of US$10,040 million in 2020, which would place Apple in the 13th position in the top-15 ranking.

The top-15 ranking includes pure-play foundry TSMC, which is forecast to register a strong 31% jump in revenue this year, according to IC Insights. Much of TSMC's increase is due to a surge in sales of its 5nm and 7nm application processors to Apple and HiSilicon for their respective smartphones. If TSMC was excluded from the list, Sony, with US$9,243 million in expected 2020 semiconductor sales, would be ranked 15th, said IC Insights.

By DIGITIMES