Apple remains atop semiconductor spending customer ranking for fourth year in a row

The top 10 global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) decreased their chip spending by 7.6% and accounted for 37.2% of the total market in 2022, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. The research group says all top 10companies in 2021 remained in 2022, with Apple and Samsung Electronics retaining the top two spots. 

Apple remained at the top of the semiconductor spending customer ranking for the fourth year in a row. The company decreased spending on computing microprocessing units (MPUs) by 11.7% due to the continuous shift to having its own in-house-designed application processors. However, Apple increased spending on non-memory chips by 2.8%.

Samsung Electronics increased chip spending by 2.2% and retained the second position. The company gained more market share in the smartphone market due to its leadership in foldable phones, as well as benefiting from the zero-COVID policy in China, which affected its competitors, leading to an increase in spending on semiconductors in 2022.

Global inflation and recession pressures sharply weakened demand for PCs and smartphones in 2022, impacting global OEMs production, according to Gartner. Most of the top 10 semiconductor customers are major PC and smartphone OEMs. 

“The zero-COVID policy in China also caused serious material shortages and short-term disruptions to the electronics supply chain,” says Masatsune Yamaji, senior director Analyst at Gartner. “A lingering semiconductor shortage in the automotive, networking and industrial electronics markets, raised chip average selling prices (ASPs) and accelerated semiconductor revenue increases in these markets. Consequently, these factors resulted in the top OEMs decreasing their share of overall semiconductor spending in 2022 from that in 2021.”