AI and memory propel the semiconductor market to $216.3B in Q3 2025

The global semiconductor market has, for the first time ever, cleared the $200 billion mark in a single quarter. According to Omdia, industry revenue reached $216.3 billion in the third quarter of 2025, up 14.5% from the previous quarter. For context, Q3 usually delivers a seasonal uptick of just over 7%, and forecasts for this year’s third quarter pointed to roughly 5% sequential growth. The outcome doubled those expectations and puts the market on a trajectory to finish the year above $800 billion.

The drivers are familiar: artificial intelligence and memory. Demand for AI accelerators and advanced DRAM and HBM remains so intense that these segments continue to outpace the broader market. Crucially, unlike in 2024—when almost all of the growth came from NVIDIA and memory suppliers while the rest of the industry barely scraped roughly 1%—the recovery in 2025 looks far broader. Taken together, the market in the second half is adding more than 14% quarter over quarter, and even excluding NVIDIA and memory it is growing by over 9%, a sign that momentum is becoming genuinely systemic rather than concentrated.

By the end of 2024, the semiconductor industry exceeded $650 billion in revenue, rising more than 20% year over year, though that surge was uneven, with the lion’s share tied to AI GPUs and memory. In 2025 the picture is shifting: AI and memory remain the locomotives, but other categories—from logic to analog—are finally emerging from inventory corrections and soft demand. Omdia estimates that by the end of 2025 the total market will surpass $800 billion, nearly 20% above last year, while the “rest” of the market—without NVIDIA and memory—will deliver around 9% annual growth. The numbers suggest the upswing is no longer a one-note story.

The top four companies by revenue in Q3 2025 were NVIDIA and the three largest memory makers—Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. Together they accounted for more than 40% of the money the industry earned during the quarter. Analysts say demand is rising not only for costly HBM but also for mainstream DRAM, as AI inference scales and data centers require ever more memory. That has already driven a sharp, short-term jump in prices, and experts expect the fourth quarter to set a new all-time record, with the current demand wave flowing into next year without abrupt corrections. The concentration at the top underscores how the AI–memory axis is redefining the balance of power across the sector.