Freescale Crashes Out to ST Micro In The Automotive Semiconductor Stakes
Since the March 2011 Tohoku Pacific coast earthquake in Japan, Renesas has managed to recover its front end fabrication operations which were completely disrupted.
According to the Strategy Analytics' report, "Automotive Semiconductor Vendor 2011 Vendor Market Shares," the firm retained a 14 percent market share in the automotive semiconductor market, four percent ahead of its nearest rivals.
In the same period, Freescale lost its number three automotive position to ST Microelectronics.
Since the earthquake, the key automotive semiconductor front end manufacturing plants have managed to minimise damage to 2011 revenues. Renesas lost some ground to rivals, but in the end retained its number one position, with sales of just over $3 billion.
Last year's boisterous demand for power analogue semiconductors boosted ST Micro's revenues to overtake digital semiconductor biased Freescale.
The top five semiconductor vendors for 2011 were Renesas, Infineon, ST, Freescale, and NXP.
Strategy Analytics says automotive semiconductor vendor annual revenues increased 11 percent to $23 billion in 2011.
Chris Webber, Vice President of the Strategy Analytics Global Automotive Practice, says, "Automotive semiconductor vendors faced a variety of major regional challenges to demand growth in 2011, including the Japan earthquake, the Euro-zone debt crisis and floods in Thailand. Nevertheless, these vendors turned in healthy double digit revenue growth. This highlights the strategic value of semiconductors in the automotive sector, where electronics penetration into vehicles is set to drive semiconductor demand even further over the next five years and beyond."
