Taipei, June 24 (CNA) Taiwan-based MediaTek Inc. remained the world's fifth largest IC designer in the first quarter of 2023 even as its sales fell from a quarter earlier due to weaker global demand, according to market advisory firm TrendForce Corp.
In a research report, the Taipei-based advisory firm said MediaTek posted first quarter sales of US$3.15 billion, down 8.8 percent from a quarter earlier, and took a 9.3 percent share of the global IC design market, compared with 10.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022.
MediaTek was hurt by inventory adjustments in the semiconductor industry in the first quarter and saw sales generated from smartphone ICs and power management solutions fall 20 percent and 13 percent, respectively, from a quarter earlier, according to TrendForce.
Its revenue from its smart edge platforms business remained steady, however, as buyers of TV-related products began rebuilding their inventories in the first quarter, TrendForce said.
Another Taiwanese company, display drive IC designer Novatek Microelectronics Corp., placed seventh with a 2.3 percent share on sales of US$791 million, up 10.7 percent from a quarter earlier.
Its system on a chip (Soc) business rose 24 percent quarter-on-quarter while its drive IC business was up 2 percent, TrendForce said.
Right behind Novatek was communications network IC designer Realtek Semiconductor Corp., another Taiwanese IC company. Its first-quarter sales fell 7.0 percent in the first quarter from a quarter earlier to US$646 million, giving it a 1.9 percent market share.
TrendForce said the world's top 10 IC designers had combined sales of US$33.86 billion in the first quarter, up 0.1 percent from a year earlier.
U.S.-based smartphone IC designer Qualcomm Inc. led the sector with sales of US$7.94 billion, up 0.6 percent from a quarter earlier, giving it a 23.5 percent market share.
Qualcomm benefited from shipments of its newest Snapdragon 8Gen2 chips to push up revenue generated from its handheld device business by 6.1 percent, offsetting a revenue decline from its automotive and Internet of Things (IoT) businesses.
Broadcom Corp., an American wireless and broadband communication IC designer, took the second spot with US$6.91 billion in sales in the quarter, down 2.7 percent from a quarter earlier, to secure a 20.4 percent market share.
Given a boost by generative AI development, the sales of U.S. based graphics processing unit (GPU) designer Nvidia Corp. rose 13.5 percent from a quarter earlier to US$6.73 billion.
That gave it a 19.9 percent market share, up from 17.5 percent a quarter earlier, TrendForce said.
IC designer AMD ranked fourth with a market share of 15.8 percent on sales of US$5.35 billion in the first quarter, down 4.4 percent from the previous quarter.
Others in the top 10 were U.S. data processing IC designer Marvell Technology Inc. in sixth with a 4.0 percent share, Shanghai-based Will Semiconductor in ninth with a 1.6 percent share, and U.S.-based Monolithic Power Systems in 10th with a 1.3 percent share.
TrendForce said that while the semiconductor industry was still facing inventory adjustment issues in the second quarter, some IC designers were expected to benefit from the launch of new products.
In particular, Nvidia is expected to see sales grow further in the second quarter because of its development of AI-related chips, and it could even take the top spot in the global IC design market, TrendForce said.
