Chip industry revenues globally saw a remarkable bounce in 2021, reaching a record $556 billion in sales even as carmakers and others continued to suffer from a shortage of chips.
China dominated sales again with more than one-third of total revenues, reaching $192 billion, according to an official count by the Semiconductor Industry Association. All Asian countries combined with China accounted for 70% of the total.
“Amid the ongoing global chip shortage, semiconductor companies substantially ramped up production to unprecedented levels to address persistently high demand, resulting in record chip sales and units shipped,” said John Neuffer, SIA president, in a statement.
By comparison to China, the U.S. and other countries in the Americas were $119 billion, about 22% of the total, based on a reliable estimate of sales done in November by the non-profit World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization. (WSTS had estimated $553 billion total sales for 2021, but final numbers reported by SIA were higher, at $556 billion.) While all Asian countries, including China and Japan, accounted for 70% of the total, Europe had 8.5% of the total.
Even though the chip shortage affected some car models and some other consumer products including some computers and smartphones, the WSTS predicted last November that “robust consumer demand pushed all major product categories to double-digit growth rates except Optoelectronics” in 2021.
SIA broke out some segments, noting that analog chips grew the most, by 33%, to $74 billion in 2021 sales, while logic and memory chips each grew by 31% to $155 billion for logic and $154 billion for memory. Micro-ICs, including microprocessors, grew by 15% to $80.2 billion in 2021, while auto ICs grew 34% to reach a record high of $26 billion. Logic and memory were each about 28% of the total sales.
Record sales in 2021 were a 26% increase over 2020’s total of $440 billion, which was a 6% increase over 2019’s total of $412 billion, according to SIA. The chip industry shipped 1.15 trillion semiconductors in 2021, also a record. Fourth quarter sales were $153 billion, up 28% year-over-year.
Nueffer noted that semiconductor production is expected to rise significantly in years ahead with chips embedded in all the essential technologies. He again called on Congress to “swiftly fund” $52 billion in CHIPS Act investments in research, design and fabrication of chips to strengthen the U.S. economy, security, critical infrastructure and supply chains.
WSTS has expected chip sales to grow by nearly 9% in 2022. All regions and product segments are expected to show growth as well. There will be double-digit growth in Sensors and Logic categories.
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