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was the world's largest buyer of
semiconductors in 2011, spending 17.3 billion dollars on chips to
drive its fleet of iPods, iPads, iPhones and Macs, according to a
report from Gartner Research on Tuesday.
Apple was just ahead of Samsung, which spent 16.7 billion dollars
on chips, with Hewlett Packard spending 16.6 billion dollars.
HP, the world's largest maker of PCs, was the top semiconductor
buyer in 2010 but was overhauled by Samsung and Apple thanks to their
stellar sales of smartphones and other mobile devices.
The biggest decline on the list came from Nokia, which saw its
semiconductor purchases drop by 20 percent as its smartphone
business dried up.
