HP buys most chips

The oufit's Semiconductor DQ report noted that the top 100 OEMs snapped up US$209 billion worth of semiconductors last year, representing 76 per cent of the total amount of semiconductors sold overall in 2007.

Data processing and communications electronics were purportedly the applications which demanded the most chips purchased by OEMs in the top 100 list (75 per cent combined), with consumer electronics taking up 18 per cent, industry needing nine per cent and the (dying) car industry requiring eight per cent.

Gartner reckoned that HP was the OEM which had the highest demand for semiconductors, buying up US$16.5 billion worth last year. Some way behind HP, Nokia, Dell, and Samsung were next on the list, consuming $11 billion of semiconductors each.

The report noted that PC and mobile phone shipment rates were up by double digit figures last year and that HP and Nokia especially had grown extensively in these fields. The report also noted that because both companies had snapped up semiconductors at their cheapest, they had managed to keep their consumption versus revenue rates down, meaning that their revenues actually grew quite significantly when looked at in the context of their semiconductor consumption.

Alfonso Velosa, a Gartner research director and former Intel commodity specialist, noted that the semiconductor industry had a bit of an ongoing problem when it came to pricing, saying there was “significant erosion of semiconductor content and average selling prices (ASPs), especially in core markets”.

Velosa added that computer and mobile phone semiconductor prices had slumped about nine per cent last year compared to 2006.