The world's leading semiconductor suppliers significantly increased their combined market share over the past decade. According to IC Insights, the top-5 semiconductor suppliers accounted for 47% of the world's semiconductor sales in 2018, up 14pp from 10 years earlier.

The world's top-50 semiconductor suppliers represented 89% of the total US$514 billion worldwide semiconductor market in 2018, up 7pp from the 82% share the top 50 companies held in 2008, IC Insights said.

The top-5, -10, and -25 companies' share of the 2018 worldwide semiconductor market climbed 14pp, 15pp and 11pp, respectively, as compared to 10 years earlier in 2008, IC Insights said. With additional mergers and acquisitions expected over the next few years, IC Insights believes that the consolidation could raise the shares of the top suppliers to even loftier levels.

There was a wide 66pp range of year-over-year growth rates among the top-50 semiconductor suppliers last year, from 56% for Nanya to negative 10% for Fujitsu, IC Insights noted. Nanya rode a surge of demand for its DRAM devices to post its great full-year results. However, evidence of a cool down in the memory market last year was evident in the company's quarterly sales results, which saw its sales drop from US$826 million in the second quarter of 2018 to US$550 million in the fourth quarter of the year - a 33% plunge.

Overall, four of the top-7 growth companies last year - Nanya, SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung - were major memory suppliers. Although Nanya registered the highest percentage increase, Samsung had the largest dollar volume semiconductor sales increase, a whopping one-year jump of US$17.0 billion, IC Insights indicated.

In total, only nine of the top-50 companies registered better growth as compared to the 2018 worldwide semiconductor market increase of 16%, with five companies logging increases of 30% and more. In contrast, only three of the top-50 semiconductor companies logged a decline in sales last year, with Fujitsu being the only company to register a double-digit sales drop, according to IC Insights.