News

22 August 2006

 

Top 10 GaAs device makers in 2005 joined by Hittite, Mitsubishi Electric and Toshiba at expense of Eudyna, Sony and NEC

In its reports "GaAs Device Vendor Market Share 2005: North America" and "GaAs Device Vendor Market Share 2005: Asia Pacific and Europe", Strategy Analytics' has detailed its annual ranking of the world's top GaAs device manufacturers for last year.

Seven of the top-ten GaAs device manufacturers in 2005 were based in North America. RF Micro Devices, Skyworks and TriQuint remain entrenched as market leaders, accounting for 52% of the total GaAs device merchant market. However, the 'usual suspects' have been joined by fabless company Hittite.

Of Japanese GaAs device manufacturers, Eudyna Devices, Sony and NEC slipped out of the top ten, while Mitsubishi Electric and Toshiba gained market share. Mitsubishi Electric was the Japanese market leader and saw significant growth for its MMIC business as it led supply of GaAs power
amplifiers to the Japanese 3G cellular handset market.

"2006 will bring some changes as well. None of the European GaAs device manufacturers held a top-ten position in 2005, yet we expect Filtronic to climb into this top-ten GaAs device manufacturer ranking in 2006," observes Asif Anwar, Director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies service. "The Asia-Pacific foundries will also maintain growth in 2006 and 2007. Demand for foundry services in some cases is actually coming from the traditional GaAs device companies themselves, many of whom are choosing to outsource excess GaAs device production rather than investing it in upgrading existing facilities."

"Despite these movements, we believe that North American players will continue to cement their dominance of the GaAs device market in 2006, since they supply the majority of GaAs devices to the strategically important handset market, as well as to other markets utilizing GaAs devices,"
maintains Stephen Entwistle, vice president of the Strategic Technologies Practice at Strategy Analytics.

* Strategy Analytics will be at European Microwave Week 2006 in Manchester, UK for "The Cellphone as the Universal Device: Convergence and What It Means for Radio Components," outlining how the changing demands from the cellular handset market will affect component manufacturers.

Visit: http://www.strategyanalytics.com