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Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Grew 7.9% in 2014

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Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $339.8 billion in 2014, a 7.9 percent increase from 2013 revenue of $315 billion, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc.

The top 25 semiconductor vendors’ combined revenue increased 11.7 percent, which was more than the overall industry’s growth. The top 25 vendors accounted for 72.1 percent of total market revenue, up from 69.7 percent in 2013.

“As a group, DRAM vendors outperformed the rest of the semiconductor industry. This follows the trend seen in 2013 due to a booming DRAM market that saw revenue increase 31.7 percent during 2014 as the undersupply and stable pricing continued,” said Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner.

 “In contrast to 2013, which saw revenue decline in key device categories, including ASIC, discretes and microcomponents, all device categories saw positive growth in 2014, but none could match the growth of the memory market, which grew 16.9 percent in 2014. Excluding memory revenue, growth for the remainder of the market reached 5.4 percent, but this is much better than 2013 growth of 0.8 percent for nonmemory revenue.”

Intel saw a return to growth in 2014, following two years of revenue decline, with 4.6 percent growth (see Table 1). The company reorganized itself into five new business units in 2014, with the Datacenter Group continuing to be the most the stable unit for the company.

Intel is on pace to reach its goal of 40 million tablet processors in 2014, although these processors are being shipped at significantly discounted prices with incentives.

On the PC front, Intel continued to gain market share from AMD, and Gartner expects volume increases for both Intel’s notebook and desktop platforms compared with 2013.

Intel has maintained the No. 1 market share position for the 23rd consecutive year, capturing 15.0 percent of the 2014 semiconductor market, down slightly from its peak of 16.5 percent in 2011.

“In 2014, we saw a return to production growth in the traditional PC sector, after a 10.1 percent decline in 2013,” said Mr. Norwood.

“The smartphone market continued to perform well, with production growth of around 34 percent, down slightly from 39.5 percent in 2013, although there was a distinct shift to utility and basic smartphones away from premium handsets. Tablet production, however, experienced a sharp slowdown from last year.”

“DRAM revenues will hit $46.0 billion in 2014, an all-time high surpassing the previous record set back in 1995.” said Mr. Norwood.

“However, in terms of the overall share of the semiconductor market, DRAM accounted for 13.5 percent in 2014, half of the 27.9 percent share it held back in 1995.”

SK Hynix and Micron Technology benefited the most from the strong memory market, with the strongest growth of the top 10 vendors. SK Hynix saw a second strong year of revenue growth propelled by the booming DRAM market. DRAM accounts for about 80 percent of the company’s revenue.

Micron Technology moved up one place in the rankings in 2014 due to its 41 percent growth. Its acquisition of Elpida Memory in 2013 helped make it one of the fastest-growth semiconductor vendors in the top 25.

Micron’s DRAM business slightly underperformed the overall DRAM market as the company converted Fab 7 (formerly Tech Semiconductor) from DRAM to NAND in order to rebalance the portfolio following the Elpida acquisition.

This conversion improved the overall DRAM supply-and-demand balance, although it resulted in slower bit growth year over year. In 2014, DRAM accounted for just under 70 percent of Micron’s revenue, and NAND flash accounted for slightly under 30 percent.

There was significantly more merger and acquisition activity among the major vendors in 2014 than the previous year.

Among the most significant deals was Avago Technologies’ acquisition of LSI, propelling the company into the top 25 semiconductor vendors for the first time. MStar Semiconductor was merged with MediaTek after a prolonged merger, and ON Semiconductor acquired Aptina Imaging.

Meanwhile, Infineon Technologies’ bid for International Rectifier has yet to be completed. After adjusting for M&A activity, the top 25 vendors grew at 10.0 percent, meaning the rest of the market saw a more respectable growth of 2.6 percent.


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NIMC Says NIN Services Back Online

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National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has announced the restoration of its National Identification Number (NIN) verification services nationwide.

NIMC Says NIN Services Back Online

This, according to the commission, follows the completion of a system maintenance exercise.

In a statement issued on Friday, the NIMC confirmed that all previously disrupted services have resumed.

“NIMC wishes to inform the general public that the recent technical maintenance has been completed and all services have been restored,” the statement read.

The NIMC urged Nigerians seeking to enroll for NIN to visit the its official website to locate the nearest enrollment centers.

The agency also encouraged individuals to make use of its self-service portal for tasks such as data modification, including name changes.

To further ease the verification process, the Commission recommended downloading the NIMC NameAuth app (oath.app) from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store for quick and secure NIN authentication.

NIMC expressed appreciation for the public’s patience during the service disruption, which had impacted banks, telecom providers, and government agencies that rely on NIN verification for their operations.

 


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Report Reveals African Organizations Dangerously Overestimating Cyber defences

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Many businesses are overestimating their defence against cyber attacks, which creates a significant human risk blind spot. A new KnowBe4 report exposes a worrying disconnect between what leaders think about their cyber security readiness and what employees experience.

According to the KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025, based on insights from cyber security decision-makers across 30 African countries, despite high awareness, a critical gap exists in turning that awareness into actual readiness and resilient behaviour.

Key findings from the KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025:

Confidence vs awareness: While cyber security awareness is high, leaders express uncertainty about their workforce’s ability to act on that awareness. Many feel employees may overestimate their capabilities in recognising, reporting and mitigating threats.

The need for adaptive and personalised security awareness training: Many companies fail to personalise security awareness training to specific roles or risk exposures.

Widespread BYOD usage: A large percentage of employees (between 41% and 80%) use their personal devices for work.

AI policy development is lagging: Many companies (46%) are still in the process of developing policies for using AI tools in the workplace.

Regional variation: Southern Africa trains more, East Africa governs AI better and West/Central Africa sees the most human-related security incidents.

This gap is significant because Africa has become an attractive target to cyber criminals, especially those that launch AI-powered attacks. A LexisNexis Risk Solutions study found 60% of South African organisations have seen an increase in AI-facilitated financial crime – above the 56% global average.

Kehinde Popoola, regional manager and key representative for West and East Africa at Rubrik, said digital transformation is gaining momentum in Africa and companies are more exposed to cyber risk. The Rubrik executive adds that amid an increase in threats, it is crucial that organisations adopt an assumed breach mindset.

The KnowBe4 research shows that cyber security preparedness and the actual structures required to support secure behaviour seem misaligned.

The report highlights that just 10% of cyber security leaders are fully confident that staff would report a phishing attack or other cyber threat, despite rating employee security awareness of cyber threats at four out of five or higher.

There is also a significant perception gap between decision-makers and general employees in Africa regarding security awareness training, with 68% of leaders believing that training is tailored to roles, compared to only a third of employees feeling adequately trained.

KnowBe4 asserts that many organisations only conduct annual or biannual training that is too generic to effectively change behaviour, contributing to uncertainty about its effectiveness.

According to another report, the KnowBe4 African Cybersecurity and Awareness Report 2025, which focuses on end-user based responses, only 43% of African respondents felt confident in their ability to recognise a cyber threat, and just one in three believed their security awareness training was adequately tailored to their role. This comparison suggests the development of a dangerous perception gap in many organisations.

“There’s a disconnect here – between what leaders think is happening and what employees are actually experiencing,” says Anna Collard, SVP content strategy and evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa. “The data shows that without procedural and cultural follow-through, awareness simply doesn’t translate into readiness.”

“The continent’s cyber security posture may be more confident than it is truly resilient,” Collard adds.

 


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Domain of Deception as Attackers Deploy Spyware Under Guise of Legal Threats

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Kaspersky has detected a rapidly escalating malicious campaign that has targeted over 1,100 corporate users since June 2025. The attackers pose as a legal firm and in their emails threaten recipients with lawsuits over alleged domain name patent violations, aiming to deploy malware.

Victims who opened and launched the attached files – that mimicked legal documents – had a Trojan installed on their devices, and the attackers could spy on the content of their screens. Organisations across healthcare, finance, and education sectors have been targeted.

The campaign began with 95 emails on June 11 and has since continued to escalate. Apart from claiming that the recipient’s domain name violates patented combinations of a major brand and threatening litigation, in the email the fake legal bureau also expresses the patent holders’ interest in acquiring the domain and offers getting acquainted with the details of the alleged violations by opening the attached archive with “documents”.

It is worth noting that the attackers, likely to avoid detection, attach an archive that is not password protected, and inside it includes another archive that is password protected and a file containing the password along with it.

After the user entered the archive password and clicked on the alleged legal document inside, a Trojan was installed on the device. The user saw a message displayed that read, “This document cannot be opened on this device. Try opening it on another windows device,” and simultaneously the Tor Browser was covertly downloaded and installed in the background.

Through it, the malware regularly sent snapshots of the user’s screen to the attackers over the Tor network. The malware also autostarts whenever the computer is restarted.

“This campaign is a sophisticated blend of psychological manipulation and technical deception, leveraging fear of legal action to coerce businesses into executing harmful files hidden in attached archives. Its rapid growth since June 11 underscores the urgency for organisations to bolster defenses.

Victims face the risk of losing their private data. Robust email security, employee training, and swift incident reporting are essential to counter this evolving threat,” comments Anna Lazaricheva, spam analyst at Kaspersky.

 


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