The Chip Industry Broke Records Again

According to the latest statistics released by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), global semiconductor sales reached $75.3 billion in November 2025, an increase of 3.5% month-on-month and 29.8% year-on-year. SIA pointed out that this wave of growth does not come from a single product line, but from the simultaneous expansion of demand in all major semiconductor categories, indicating that the global chip market is entering a new round of long-term expansion with artificial intelligence (AI) as the core.

From the perspective of regional performance, the Asia-Pacific region is still the main driver of this round of growth, with sales increasing by 66.1% year-on-year and 5% month-on-month in November, the highest growth rate in the world, reflecting the full opening of manufacturing capacity and the continuous fermentation of supply chain restructuring effects. The American market increased by 23% year-on-year and 3% month-on-month, indicating that the investment in AI computing power and data centers has not subsided. The Chinese mainland market maintained steady growth, with a year-on-year increase of 22.9% and a monthly increase of 3.9%. European growth was relatively modest but still positive, while Japan was the only major market to decline, down 8.9% year-on-year and 0.1% month-on-month.

The Asia-Pacific region grew at an annual rate of 66.1%, making it the strongest engine of global semiconductor growth. Behind this figure, it reflects the full start of manufacturing capacity in South Korea, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Samsung and SK hynix's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) production lines are operating at full capacity, and related production capacity has been booked in advance. TSMC's advanced process order visibility has been scheduled for 2027.

In addition, emerging manufacturing bases in Southeast Asia such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand are undertaking a large number of packaging and testing orders, indicating that the regional semiconductor supply chain is accelerating its restructuring, and the Asia-Pacific region is not only a manufacturing center, but also gradually becoming the center of gravity of the value chain.

The Americas market grew at an annual rate of 23%, which is lower than that of Asia-Pacific, but still shows strong resilience despite the high base period. Nvidia's Blackwell architecture AI chips continue to be in short supply, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon's data center construction plans have not slowed down, coupled with the expansion of Tesla's Dojo supercomputer and OpenAI's computing power, forming a stable and sustained demand for high-end chips.

Japan became the only negative growth in major markets, down 8.9% year-on-year. The reasons behind this include the shrinking consumer electronics market and the decline in global market share of brands such as Sony and Panasonic; The demand for automotive chips has weakened, and the electrification process of Toyota and Honda is not as expected; Although the semiconductor equipment and materials business is still competitive, it is difficult to make up for weak terminal demand. In addition, the depreciation of the yen has pushed up the cost of imported chips, further suppressing domestic demand.

SIA pointed out that this sales record is not driven by a single product, but the whole product line is warming up simultaneously. logic chips benefit from the continuous increase in demand for AI training and inference; In terms of memory, the supply of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is tight, driving prices and shipments to rise; analog and power semiconductors are driven by the demand for industrial automation, new energy vehicles and power management; Optoelectronic components are also benefiting from the expansion of high-speed interconnects and sensing applications in data centers.

Monthly sales reached the $75 billion mark for the first time, which is also significantly higher than the high of about $55 billion during the chip shortage in 2021. Looking back at 2019, the average monthly sales of semiconductors in the world were between $35 billion and $40 billion, nearly doubling in just a few years, reflecting that semiconductors have become the core basic industry that supports AI, cloud and intelligent applications.

The market generally believes that the current round of growth momentum comes from the AI computing power arms race, the wave of data center expansion, the surge in demand for high-bandwidth memory, and the long-term structural demand brought about by automotive electronics and energy transformation, so that the semiconductor industry is no longer only affected by the consumer electronics boom cycle.

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Organization (WSTS) estimates that global semiconductor sales are expected to reach $975.4 billion in 2026, an increase of 22.5% year-on-year, just one step away from annual sales of $1 trillion. The industry believes that as long as the trend of AI investment, data center construction and automotive intelligence does not cool down significantly, the semiconductor market still has room for continued expansion.

From an investment perspective, the long-term growth of the semiconductor industry is mainly composed of the following five core drivers:

The AI computing power arms race continues to upgrade

Large models, edge AI, and automation applications continue to drive up demand for GPUs and AI accelerators.

2. The capital expenditure of the data center is high-end

Global tech giants invest 6 to 70% of their capital expenditures in data centers to create long-term order visibility.

3. The limited supply of HBM brings structural high gross profit

HBM has become a bottleneck in AI performance, giving vendors with technical thresholds long-term pricing power.

4. Consumer electronics end the destocking cycle

The demand for smartphones and PCs is picking up, providing stable supplementary momentum for the non-AI side of the industry.

5. Automobile intelligence has become the second growth curve

The use of chips in new energy vehicles has increased significantly, and automotive semiconductors have become a new generation of long-term tracks.

The most critical investment signal of this round of semiconductor boom is that industrial centralization has accelerated significantly. Enterprises with technical barriers and scale advantages are rapidly widening the distance from competitors.

The main beneficiaries

Nvidia: The core of the AI computing power ecosystem, dominating GPU and platform standards

TSMC: The only trusted supplier of advanced processes, with the longest order visibility

Samsung and SK hynix: Monopolize the key supply of HBM, and the gross profit structure has improved significantly

Broadcom: The demand for AI networks and customized ASICs has exploded, and their roles are irreplaceable

Relative Stressors:

Intel: Transformation is underway, but AI and process backwardness still limit valuation repair

Micron: HBM layout is slow, short-term competitiveness is limited

Most chip factories in Japan: Weak terminal demand missed this round of main upgrades

For investors, the current semiconductor market is no longer a "comprehensive rebound" market, but a new stage of "structural growth and high differentiation". AI, data centers, and automotive intelligence provide a clear long-term direction, but only enterprises that stand in key positions in the value chain can truly translate into sustainable profitable growth.