While AMD was down in twelfth position in the ranking of semiconductor companies in 2008, it climbed to ninth place with a year 2009 more successful than expected.

A difficult year

2009 was one of the most difficult years for semiconductor manufacturers as the market declined by 12.4%. It is nevertheless better than the 20% announced earlier this year by analysts.

Only two companies, Samsung (ranking 2nd) and MediaTek (15th) saw their turnover increase (1.3% for the first and 21.7% for the second). Qualcomm has managed to stay with a turnover of nearly identical from one year to another and all the other manufacturers have seen their incomes drop.

AMD has responded to this

Some, like Intel (1 -5%), AMD (9th, -7.6%) Hynix or (7e, -1.4%) and Toshiba (3rd, -4%) have managed to limit losses, enabling them to consolidate their position, even in the case of AMD, to return to the top end, thanks to a solid catalog CPU according to analysts. The Opterons are still in effect to attract professionals and enjoy a good image (see IBM is not the fastest). Processors entry and midrange have also managed to fight against models from Intel; it still remains untouchable in the premium market and that of netbooks.

Among the firms most affected by the crisis this year, Sony notes that constitute the fastest decline in the array with -32.8% (10th rank), but Texas Instruments (4th, 13.2%), Texas Instruments (5th, -18.6%), NEC (11th, -24.4%), Infineon (12th, -27.1%), Freescale (17th, -32.7%), Panasonic (18th, -25, 6%) and Sharp (20th, -20%).