GoKawiilThe global semiconductor foundry market generated a record $320 billion in revenue in 2025, growing 16% year-over-year, according to Counterpoint Research's Foundry Market Supply Tracker published on Monday, March 30. Demand for AI GPUs and custom AI ASICs drove the gains across both advanced manufacturing and advanced packaging, with TSMC accounting for 38% of the total market and growing at more than four times the rate of its nearest competitors.
Counterpoint's figures use an expanded "Foundry 2.0" definition that includes pure-play foundries, non-memory integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) companies, and photomask suppliers. Under that framework, pure-play foundries accounted for 54% of revenue and grew 26% YoY, while non-memory IDMs made up 27% and grew just 2%.
TSMC's full-year revenue grew 36% YoY, though quarterly growth moderated to 25% in Q4 2025 from the 40%-plus rates posted earlier in the year. The slowdown reflected a higher comparison base in high-performance computing and typical consumer electronics seasonality.
"The key question is no longer just wafer capacity, but system-level integration," Jake Lai, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, said. "As front-end scaling becomes more constrained, bottlenecks are increasingly moving to the back end."
Non-TSMC foundries collectively grew a more modest 8% YoY, aside from Chinese foundries, which were the exception. SMIC posted 16% growth, and Nexchip grew 24%, both supported by ongoing localization efforts. Counterpoint expects double-digit growth from Chinese fabs to remain sustainable into 2026.
Samsung had what Counterpoint described as a mixed year, but the firm's analysts see room for improvement. "Demand for its 4nm node has been relatively solid, supporting better pricing, and the ramp of 2nm should help it secure higher-value designs, particularly in AI and mobile," Tom Kang, research director at Counterpoint Research, said.
... continue reading