With the rise of mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and wearables, the mobile chip market has rapidly surpassed the PC market, driving the rapid development of the chip foundry market. More than 10 billion mobile chips are sold worldwide every year, and these chips are produced by chip foundries. At the same time, the rise of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things has also made a large number of chip design companies tend to hand over chip foundry to professional foundries, so the chip foundry industry has broad prospects. In the past 20 years, IDM manufacturers represented by Intel have dominated the global chip market. However, with the change of market environment and the rise of competitors, Intel gradually lost its competitive advantage. In order to adapt to the changes in the market and expand its market share, Intel announced its entry into the chip foundry market a few years ago.
Intel has certain advantages in chip manufacturing processes, and its chip manufacturing processes have reached the level of 7nm, which is comparable to TSMC and Samsung's 5nm processes. Compared with other chip foundry companies that still stay at the 14nm process level, Intel's process advantages are obvious. However, because Intel itself is also engaged in chip manufacturing, it has formed a competitive relationship with many chip companies, which once caused the resistance of chip companies to hand over chips to Intel foundry. However, with the failure of Intel in the tablet market and the acquisition of mobile phone chip companies by Apple in 2019, Intel's competition with other chip companies has gradually weakened. On the other hand, many chip companies hope to balance TSMC by handing over orders to Intel. Although Samsung, as a competitor of TSMC, has strong competitiveness in the mobile chip market and has formed a competitive relationship with many mobile chip companies, due to the slow mass production progress of Samsung and TSMC in the US factory, some American chip companies have begun to hand over orders to Intel foundry. Under the combined effect of these factors, Intel's development in the chip foundry market has gradually accelerated.
According to data released by TrendForce, Intel ranked first in the global chip foundry market with a growth rate of 34% in the third quarter, and entered the ninth place in the global chip foundry top 10 for the first time. This shows that Intel has shown a strong competitive advantage in the chip foundry market, and its chip manufacturing process is comparable to that of competitors such as TSMC and Samsung. As U.S. chip companies place more orders for Intel, it is expected that Intel's growth momentum in the chip foundry market will continue, and it is expected to enter the top five in the global chip foundry market soon. In this way, the market share will also form a three-legged situation of Intel, TSMC and Samsung. However, this is undoubtedly bad news for TSMC. Because nearly 70% of TSMC's revenue comes from American chip companies, and the gradual rise of Intel will take away some orders for American chips, which means that TSMC's future revenue from the US chip market will decrease, and TSMC's prospects have become unoptimistic. In the face of such changes, TSMC is actively expanding into markets such as Chinese mainland, Japan and Europe. However, the Japanese chip industry is in recession, and TSMC is unable to provide advanced manufacturing processes to chip companies in Chinese mainland, which has a certain impact on TSMC's future.
Changes in the chip foundry market have brought new opportunities and challenges to global chip companies. Intel's tortuous development into the chip foundry market has demonstrated its advantages in manufacturing processes, making it one of the top 10 in the chip foundry market. Due to Intel's advantages and the impact of market changes, it is expected to further increase its market share in the future, forming a fierce competition pattern with TSMC and Samsung. However, for TSMC, facing the threat from Intel and the decline in market share, it needs to actively seek new market opportunities and reduce its dependence on the U.S. chip market. The changes in the entire chip foundry market are still evolving, and chip companies need to respond flexibly and maintain competitiveness through technological innovation and market expansion.