Nvidia and AMD generated over $25 billion in combined revenue last year

[midian182]

In brief: Despite the well-documented global chip shortages and the graphics card supply issues, 2020 was a boom time for Nvidia and AMD. The firms experienced the largest YoY revenue increases among the top fabless tech companies last year, totaling a combined $25+ billion.

A TrendForce report (via PC Gamer) notes that while the pandemic initially looked set to devastate the IC design industry, the resulting increase in remote working/learning and more people gaming led to unprecedented demand.

While Qualcomm and Broadcom took the first and second spots, respectively, when it came to the Top 10 IC design companies in 2020, third place Nvidia was the leader in terms of year-on-year growth. Team green generated $15.4 billion last year, a massive 52.2% increase compared to 2019. It’s noted that the company’s acquisition of Mellanox boosted its data center solutions, which generated nearly $6.4 billion in revenue.

It was a good year for fifth place AMD, too. The company’s $9.7 billion of revenue marked a 45% jump over the previous year. Its 7nm CPUs for both consumers and enterprise use continued to erode Intel’s market share. Chipzilla recently said it plans to open up both its current and planned manufacturing capacity to other firms, including AMD and Nvidia, through the launch of Intel Foundry Services.

Broadcom was top dog in 2019, but according to TrendForce, the sudden demand for network devices, along with Apple’s decision to adopt Qualcomm’s baseband processors once again, helped the Snapdragon maker take the number one position with a revenue of $19.4 billion, up 33.7% YoY.

When it comes to the global chip shortage, there are fears the situation could be exacerbated by the ongoing drought in Taiwan, which will soon introduce further water restrictions.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/89086-nvidia-amd-generated-over-25-billion-combined-revenue.html

 

[Avro Arrow]

Intel offering fab services to other chipmakers?

Yeah, I'm sure they'll be just lining up to give Intel their money! /S

Intel always manages to fail far harder than they succeed.

 

[punctualturn]

Yey for AMD!

boo, hissss for Nvidia.

lol

 

[Watzupken]

The results are not surprising to be honest. These companies are mostly selling out everything they can get out of the fab. As long as the fab continues to produce reasonable quantities of the hardware, these companies likely won't make a loss.

 

[Loadedaxe]

Revenue should be up. They were making a killing off miners.

 

[poohbear]

Interesting, Xilinx is 6th place, and AMD bought them. So, AMD's revenue next year might rival Nvidia's.

 

[sac39507]

These guys should be investigated. Creating a high demand and low supply to drive up prices seem suspicious. Is there real data to show that miners are actually hogging up the supply or are we just being told this?

 

[neeyik]

Creating a high demand and low supply to drive up prices seem suspicious.

There's no evidence that AMD or Nvidia have raised their prices to add-in board vendors (although it is possible they have) and those of the latter that sell directly aren't either (but I've not been able to check them all). End retailers are, though, and that could be because they're having to pay more for them; but it could also just as well be down to them wanting to keep revenue figures high, while coping with low sales volumes.

Low supply is evidently real and has been confirmed by at least one AIB vendor - both TSMC and Samsung are unable to meet the demand, as it's not just GPUs in short supply, but AMD CPUs and consoles as well. But they're not the only semiconductor fabricators to be in this position.

Is there real data to show that miners are actually hogging up the supply

No, there isn't. However, for every time there has been a dearth of GPUs and a rise in used prices, there's nearly always been a boom in one cryptocurrency's value or another. Correlation isn't automatically causation, but given how profitable cypto can be and how easy it is to set up a mining farm, I'd say that the portion of revenue to miners is not trivial. Nvidia estimated it to be in the order of $100 to $300 million, but that's pretty small compared to the $2.5 billion revenue they generated in their gaming sector, in the same financial quarter.

With so many countries going into lockdown, sales of gaming PCs and associated hardware increased - contrary to what the industry initially thought it might do (e.g. assumed lower sales due to workforce being laid off or furloughed). System builders need graphics cards, just as much as enthusiasts who build their own do, and they have felt the pinch too.

Graphics cards have fairly long and complex supply chains - vendors need to purchase multiple trays of GPUs from AMD/Nvidia, likewise for the DRAM chips from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron; they also need a raft of other components, such as voltage regulators, chokes, resistors, capacitors. And that's before one gets to the raw materials needed for making the PCB, cooling systems, cabling, and packaging, Any hold up in just one of those areas will affect the entire product output rate.

 

[pildorman321]

Both indulge in price hiking and anti-competitive behaviors