Top Semiconductor Companies by Revenue, 1970–2024
Intel dominates for three decades. Samsung challenges. TSMC rises quietly as the world's manufacturer. Then in 2023–24, Nvidia explodes past everyone as AI drives compute demand to unprecedented levels.
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In 1970, the semiconductor industry was a niche business. Texas Instruments, Motorola, and NEC jostled for dominance with revenues under a billion dollars. Then Intel invented the microprocessor and changed everything.
For most of the 1990s and 2000s, Intel was so dominant it barely seemed like a race. Then Samsung's memory supercycle briefly challenged it in 2017–18 before prices crashed. TSMC grew steadily as the semiconductor industry moved toward fabless design — companies like Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm designing chips but outsourcing manufacturing to TSMC.
The real drama came in 2023–24. Nvidia, a graphics card company most people associated with gaming, became the most valuable semiconductor company in the world as AI training workloads drove demand for its GPUs to extraordinary levels. In 2024 Nvidia's revenue hit $130 billion — nearly double Intel's.