Top 13 IC foundries by foundry sales in 2015

TSMC, by far, was the leader with $26.4bn in sales last year. In fact, TSMC’s 2015 sales were over five times that of second-ranked GlobalFoundries (even with the addition of IBM’s chip business in the second half of 2015) and almost 12 times the sales of the fifth-ranked China-based foundry SMIC. As shown, there are only two IDM foundries in the ranking - Samsung and Fujitsu - after IBM and Magnachip fell from the list in 2015. Despite losing a significant amount of Apple’s business, Samsung easily remained the largest IDM foundry last year, with more than three the sales of Fujitsu, the second-largest IDM foundry.

Figure 1 - top IC foundries (pure-play & IDM) by foundry sales in 2015

Illustrating the dramatic effect of exchange rate fluctuations on the IC sales numbers, TSMC’s 2015 growth rate was about half (6%) of what it was in its local currency (11%). Thus, while the company met its stated goal of 10% or better growth in 2015 in NT dollars (840.5bn), its USD growth rate was only 6%.

Driving home just how important Apple’s foundry business is, TSMC’s foundry sales increased by $1,464m last year while its sales to Apple jumped by $1,990m, representing more than 100% of TSMC’s total foundry sales increase in 2015. Without Apple, TSMC’s foundry sales would have declined by 2% last year, eight points less than the 6% increase it logged when including Apple!

Second ranked GlobalFoundries took over IBM’s IC business in early July of 2015. It should be noted that besides $515m in IDM foundry sales IBM made in 2014, the company also had about $1.0bn of internal transfer IC revenue that year. As a result, GlobalFoundries’ quarterly sales in 4Q15 were about $1.4bn , an annual run-rate of $5.6bn, about 12% greater than the company’s 2015 sales of $5.0bn. However, without the addition of IBM’s sales in the second half of last year, GlobalFoundries’ sales would have declined by 2% in 2015.

Sales from the top 13 foundries’ shown in Figure 1 were $46.7bn and represented 93% of the $50.3bn in total foundry sales in 2015. This share was two points higher than the 91% share the top 13 represented two years earlier in 2013. With the barriers to entry (e.g., fab costs, access to leading edge technology, etc.) into the foundry business being so high and rising, IC Insights expects this 'top 13' marketshare figure to continue to slowly rise in the future.