Mumbai, May 15 (IANS): Global semiconductor revenue hit $343.5 billion in 2016 -- a 2.6 per cent increase from 2015 revenue of $334.9 billion, market research firm Gartner said on Monday.

The top 25 semiconductor vendors' combined revenue increased 10.5 per cent, a significantly better performance than the overall industry's growth. However, most of this growth resulted from merger and acquisition (M&A) activity.

"Worldwide semiconductor revenue growth was supported by increasing production in many electronic equipment segments, improving NAND flash memory pricing and relatively benign currency movements," said James Hines Research Director at Gartner.

Intel retained its top spot as the largest semiconductor manufacturer and grew its semiconductor revenue 4.6 per cent in 2016. 

While Samsung Electronics continued to maintain the second spot with 11.7 per cent market share, Qualcomm stood third with 4.5 per cent market share. 

"Consolidation continued to play a major role in the market share rankings, with several large companies growing through acquisitions," the report added.