Semiconductor Revenue Hits Record, Quarterly Surge Reaches 31.4%

Driven by soaring demand for memory chips in AI-focused data centres, global semiconductor revenue hit an all-time high in Q2 2026, jumping 31.4% quarter-on-quarter to USD 425 billion, according to research firm Omdia. Production capacity cannot keep pace with demand, so near-term market relief is unlikely. Manufacturers are prioritising capacity for AI-related products.

The 31.4% jump outpaced Q1’s 29.2% gain and marked the strongest quarterly rise since Omdia began tracking the sector in 2002. Across 97 quarters of data, double-digit sequential growth has occurred only ten times — yet the past four consecutive quarters from Q3 2025 have all delivered double-digit increases. Total revenue for the first half of 2026 reached USD 752 billion, surpassing full-year 2025 revenue.

Memory ICs are the central driver. In Q2 2026, memory products accounted for more than half of global semiconductor revenue, climbing from 45% in Q1 to 54%. DRAM, NAND Flash and NOR Flash each recorded their largest-ever quarterly sequential growth. Mass procurement of HBM and enterprise-grade storage by AI data centres has upset the supply-demand balance, lifting average selling prices. Consumer-market orders take lower priority.

Non-memory chips also delivered solid results: non-memory revenue rose more than 10% quarter-on-quarter, and microprocessor revenue surged 16% on robust demand for server CPUs and GPUs. Omdia projects global semiconductor revenue to top USD 500 billion in Q3 2026, with the first three quarters exceeding USD 1.25 trillion.

For end users the boom is mixed. Advanced process nodes will eventually trickle down, but capacity siphoning by AI data centres will keep memory and graphics-card prices elevated, steadily raising the baseline cost for PC builds and notebook BOMs — a key backdrop for laptop spare-parts pricing in 2026.