The revenue decline of the top ten IC design companies in Q4 2022 expanded to 9.2%
Recently, TrendForce released a new research report revealing that the combined revenue of the top ten global IC design companies in the fourth quarter of 2022 amounted to approximately $33.96 billion, with a quarter-on-quarter decline expanding to 9.2%. As global inflation risks heightened and inventory reduction measures were implemented in the second half of 2022, IC design companies were impacted earlier than foundries.
Aside from weak overall consumer demand, adverse factors such as the pandemic, reduced corporate IT spending, and a slowdown in demand from cloud service providers have contributed to the decline. Coupled with the traditional off-season for consumer markets, only new product releases attract some consumers and minor inventory replenishments have sustained weak overall demand. TrendForce predicts that revenues for the top ten IC design companies will continue to decline in the first quarter of 2023, with a slightly narrower quarter-on-quarter decrease.
Qualcomm maintained its leading position, but revenue from its smartphone and IoT product segments fell 22.6% and 16.2% respectively, resulting in a 20.3% quarter-on-quarter decline in Q4 revenue to $7.89 billion. Broadcom secured second place with revenue of approximately $7.1 billion, a 2.4% increase, primarily driven by server storage applications, broadband, and wireless networking businesses, which offset inventory adjustment impacts. Nvidia’s revenue reached $5.93 billion, a 2.7% decrease, with the RTX 40 series graphics cards and automotive chips offsetting some of the declines in data center revenue. AMD’s revenue stood at $5.6 billion, a 0.6% increase, benefiting from data center operations and the acquisition of Xilinx, which propelled FPGA and DPU businesses. MediaTek, reliant on smartphones and other consumer chips, saw the most significant impact, with revenue dropping 26.2% quarter-on-quarter to just $3.45 billion.
Maxim Integrated, ranking sixth, posted a revenue of $1.46 billion, a 4.8% decline. Dialog Semiconductor overtook Realtek to claim the seventh spot, with revenue of $715 million, an 11.2% increase, breaking a four-quarter losing streak. Realtek’s Q4 revenue dropped to $690 million, a nearly 30% decline, due to lost PC and Ethernet orders. Apple, the major customer for Cirrus Logic, accounted for over 80% of its revenue. Thanks to the release of new iPhone models, revenue increased 9.3% quarter-on-quarter to $590 million. Weil Semiconductor benefited from the inventory demand of new Android models, with revenue growing 2.7% to approximately $530 million.
