Apple topples HP, Samsung to become top semiconductor

Apple Inc. became the world's largest buyer of semiconductors last year as strong demand for mobile products helped the company outstrip PC giant Hewlett-Packard Co., a market report said Wednesday. The amount of chips Apple purchased in 2010 was worth US$17.5 billion, up 79.6 percent from a year earlier, IHS iSuppli said in a release. The maker of the iPhone and the iPad, which was the third-largest buyer of semiconductors in 2009, went up two notches to become the No. 1 semiconductor buyer in 2010 among the manufacturers of electronic hardware, it said. The mobile giant supplanted Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest maker of PC hardware, in terms of purchasing semiconductors. Hewlett-Packard moved one rank down to runner-up. Samsung, the world's top maker of TVs and memory chips with businesses spanning from home appliances to mobile phones, was the third-largest buyer of semiconductors in 2010, iSuppli said. The "overwhelming" success of the iPhone and the iPad, which consume a large volume of NAND flash memory, fueled Apple's rise to the most important semiconductor buyer, the research company said. The iPhone maker spent 61 percent of its 2010 chip budget on mobile products, it said, whereas Hewlett-Packard allocated 82 percent of its semiconductor budget on computer products, including desktops, laptops and servers. The smartphone market and the tablet market outgrew the PC market by a large margin in 2010, helping Apple gain ground, iSuppli said. Demand for smartphones and tablet computers spiked 62 percent and 900 percent respectively year-on-year, while the PC market expanded 14.2 percent. iSuppli forecast that Apple will continue to boost its semiconductor spending and widen the gap with Hewlett-Packard.