Global IC design revenue rankings for Q3 released, MediaTek may fall out of top ten

According to the latest statistics from TrendForce, the revenue rankings of the world's top ten IC design companies in the third quarter of 2017 are the same as in the second quarter, with Broadcom, Qualcomm, and Nvidia in the top three. Among them, MediaTek's revenue and gross profit margin in the third quarter were close to the high end of the financial forecast, but compared with the same period in 2016, its revenue still fell by 18.8%, making it the only company among the top ten IC design companies to experience a double-digit decline for two consecutive quarters.

Yao Jiayang, an analyst at TrendForce, pointed out that although MediaTek launched the P23 and P30 products to meet the market demand for mid-to-high-end smartphones, Qualcomm's mid-to-high-end product lines all adopted the 14nm process, and Kryo CPUs were successively introduced into Snapdragon 636 and Snapdragon 660, which were quite competitive in terms of price and specifications. As a result, Qualcomm and MediaTek's revenues showed a rise and fall in the third quarter. The decline in MediaTek's smartphone chip shipments also caused its revenue to decline by double digits for two consecutive quarters.

NVIDIA's revenue in the third quarter continued the growth momentum of the second quarter, and its revenue growth rate also ranked first. The main growth engines came from the gaming sector and data centers. NVIDIA's gaming sector grew from US$1.133 billion in the second quarter of 2017 to US$1.436 billion in the third quarter, with an annual growth rate of 31.8% and a quarterly growth rate of 26.7%. Its data center revenue in the third quarter was US$472 million, a 14.3% increase from US$413 million in the second quarter and a 124.7% increase from the same period last year.

AMD also performed well in the third quarter. Driven by the shipment of new-generation processors and graphics chips, the average selling price of products increased, and the market response was also quite good. The third-quarter revenue and net profit hit a new quarterly high since 2014, with a net profit of US$71 million. Compared with the net loss of US$497 million for the whole year of 2016, AMD is expected to gradually get rid of the shadow of losses this year.

As for Broadcom, which ranks first, and Qualcomm, which ranks second, after Broadcom issued an official press release to acquire Qualcomm, Qualcomm's board of directors has clearly rejected Broadcom's acquisition proposal through an official statement. Based on Broadcom's past successful acquisition experience, Broadcom should continue to communicate with Qualcomm's board of directors and important shareholders to force Qualcomm's board of directors to agree to sell. If Qualcomm's board of directors agrees to let Broadcom acquire it, Broadcom will still face the challenge of antitrust review by governments around the world.

Source | Topology Industry Research Institute