The world's top ten IC design companies see a significant increase in revenue, with NVIDIA leading by a large margin and OmniVision rising to eighth place.

  Source: CINNO Research                                             

Securities Times reporter Ruan Rengsheng

Driven by the wave of artificial intelligence (AI), the revenue of the world’s top 10 chip design companies has risen sharply. According to statistics, in 2025 the combined revenue of the world’s top 10 IC design companies exceeded $359.4 billion, up 44% year over year. Nvidia retained the revenue champion position, while Broadcom surpassed Qualcomm to become the second place. In addition, the A-share IC design leader, Himax Group, moved up to the eighth place globally.

Nvidia widens the gap again

CINNO Research’s latest survey shows that in 2025, major cloud service providers continued to purchase GPUs and procure self-developed ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) for computing capacity demand, boosting revenue growth for AI-related chip design vendors.

As a computing-power leader, Nvidia has continued to set new revenue highs thanks to its strong AI chip and computing-power ecosystem. According to CINNO Research statistics, in 2025 Nvidia’s revenue grew 65% year over year to $205.7 billion; the growth rate remained firmly the highest. It is expected that subsequent products such as GB200/GB300 will further drive Nvidia’s AI-related revenue.

The reporter notes that CINNO Research’s statistics data differ from the financial report disclosure data of listed companies. Nvidia’s disclosure of its FY2026 report for the fiscal year ended January 25, 2026 shows that the company achieved full-year revenue of $215.9 billion, up 65% year over year. The data center business grew strongly, with full-year revenue of $193.7 billion.

As one of Nvidia’s competitors, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) saw data center revenue grow more than 30% in 2025, driving total revenue up 34% to $34.6 billion, which closely matches the financial report data of listed companies, ranking fourth. Analysts say AMD’s performance growth reflects that customers in the AI server industry are seeking a second source of supply beyond Nvidia, as well as demand for an open ecosystem.

However, judging by the revenue share of the top 10 chip design companies, the gap between AMD and Nvidia has not narrowed significantly. According to CINNO Research statistics, in 2025 AMD’s revenue share remained at 10%, while Nvidia’s revenue share increased from 50% in the prior year to 57%.

Demand for customized chips expands

Although Nvidia’s “one company dominates” situation in AI chips has not changed, Nvidia’s customers have already begun to pursue customized chip roadmaps to diversify supply risk. In addition, the AI network communications industry has entered a period of rapid development. Last year, Broadcom, a leading player in a segment, surpassed Qualcomm in revenue scale and became the world’s second-largest chip design company. Its revenue rose to $39.7 billion, up 30% year over year.

Analysts say the value focus of AI semiconductors has shifted from GPUs to an overall network architecture including customized AI chips, Ethernet network devices, and NICs (network interface controllers). Against this backdrop, AI network communications has upgraded from a “supporting role” that merely supports server cabling to a core infrastructure that determines the efficiency of AI clusters and the ability to scale up and expand.

Meiwan Electronic also benefited from the rapid adoption of AI-related data center interconnections, customized chips, and interconnect technologies. In 2025, its revenue exceeded $8 billion, ranking sixth, with growth of 43%, only behind Nvidia.

Nvidia is also closely rolling out customized chips and AI communication networks to expand its core competitiveness in AI infrastructure. Recently, Nvidia announced an investment of $2.0 billion in Meiwan Electronic. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s own networking business saw an unprecedented surge. In fiscal year 2026, revenue from this segment is expected to exceed $31.0 billion. Compared with fiscal year 2021, when Nvidia made acquisitions such as to strengthen its networking business (acquiring Mavenir), the networking business has grown more than 10 times.

CINNO Research analysts noted that Nvidia’s investment in Meiwan Electronic means that in the future, it will provide platform solutions compatible with NVLinkFusion for joint customers, and also provide opportunities to incorporate customized ASICs into Nvidia’s interconnect ecosystem. This indicates that competition in AI infrastructure has extended beyond GPU computing capability to a comprehensive competition in “interconnect standards” and “platform integration capabilities.”

Revenue for power management solution vendors supporting AI and servers was also significantly boosted. According to statistics, last year, in the U.S. market, Xinyuan Systems’ revenue grew 26% year over year to $2.79 billion, entering the global top 10 for the first time.

Mobile phone makers push into premiumization

Compared with data centers, the consumer electronics industry represented by smartphones has seen a downturn in overall sentiment. Leading chip design vendors have been affected and have all shifted to premiumization efforts.

According to statistics, Qualcomm’s flagship smartphone SoC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2025 drove revenue to a historical high. However, the growth momentum of its phone-centered business structure was not as strong as AI’s. Full-year revenue was nearly $38.9 billion (up 12%), and the company fell to third place.

MediaTek last year saw shipment volume ramp for its smartphone flagship chip Dimensity 9500, driving 2025 full-year revenue growth to $19.1 billion, a historical high, ranking fifth. In addition, the network and audio chip vendor Realtek and the display driver chip vendor Himax were ranked seventh and ninth, respectively.

A-share chip design leader Himax Group again moved up in ranking. Benefiting from the increased number of lenses mounted driven by China’s domestic in-vehicle intelligent assisted driving systems, the company’s automotive CIS business grew accordingly. In addition, strong demand for sports and panoramic cameras supported growth. The company’s full-year revenue last year reached $3.31 billion, moving up from ninth place in the prior year to eighth place. The top 10 IC companies’ revenue share in the company is about 1%.

According to Himax Group’s latest financial report disclosure, last year the company achieved operating revenue of RMB 28.855 billion, up 12.14% year over year. As a main business of image sensor, sales revenue for the intelligent driving in automobiles and emerging application markets increased 26.52% and 211.85% year over year, respectively. Meanwhile, revenue from the smartphone market was RMB 8.272 billion, down 15.61% year over year.

Last year, the smartphone industry market declined, and smartphone makers faced heightened cost pressure. IDC predicts that cost pressure will push prices of Android flagship models further upward. Products with substantive innovation and differentiation will be more recognized by consumers, and the smartphone market will show a pattern of ongoing expansion in premiumization and mounting pressure in the low-end market.

To respond to industry changes, Himax Group introduced that the company continues to strengthen its competitive advantages in the high-end intelligent smartphone CIS field. Last year it launched the 50-megapixel 1-inch high dynamic range image sensor OV50X, which can support flagship smartphones to achieve film-level video recording capability. Mass production and deliveries have already been realized.

Consumer end markets may continue to face pressure

CINNO Research points out that the smartphone industry has entered a new stage: “higher-tiering supports growth, while cost pressure suppresses total volume.” According to earlier predictions, in 2026, due to the surge in memory prices globally, smartphone shipments may decrease by 10% year over year, bringing total volume down to about 1.135 billion units.

Taking the mainstream memory capacity of 8GB+256GB as an example, the estimated contract price for the first quarter of 2026 is nearly two times higher than the same period in 2025. In the past, memory components accounted for about 10%—15% of the bill of materials cost in smartphones; now it has rapidly risen to 30%—40%. CINNO Research says that raising terminal prices seems to have become an inevitable choice for maintaining operations. Brands also need to readjust product mix or configurations to cope with the ongoing surge in memory prices.

Overall, the logic behind the double-wheel-drive growth of AI-related demand and computing-power infrastructure—logic chips and memory chips—will push the global semiconductor market growth.

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization (WSTS) previously projected that the global semiconductor market size would grow 22% in 2025 to $772 billion. Logic chips and memory chips became the main drivers of growth, while other semiconductor categories showed a mild recovery trend. Discrete devices saw only a slight decline due to weaker demand from automotive applications. By region, the Americas and Asia-Pacific led growth, Europe achieved steady growth, and Japan saw a slight decline.

Looking ahead to 2026, the global semiconductor market is expected to continue its strong growth momentum, reaching $975 billion. It is expected that all regions and product categories will register growth, with both memory chips and logic chips posting year-over-year growth rates exceeding 30%, leading the industry’s growth. Due to the impact of AI infrastructure construction, supply-demand relationships in certain sub-sectors have experienced disruptions, but the consumer terminal market faces clear pressure.

(责任编辑：刘畅 ）

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