Memory chips took the majority of semiconductor revenue for the first time in the second quarter of 2026, an Omdia tally shows, as AI buying lifted average selling prices across DRAM, NAND and NOR.
Total industry revenue reached a record $425B in the quarter, up 31.4 percent from the first three months of the year. That is the steepest sequential gain Omdia has logged since it began tracking the market in 2002, edging past the 29.2 percent set in the previous quarter. Only 10 of the 97 quarters on record have grown by more than 10 percent in sequence, and the last four have all cleared that bar.
Strip memory out and the rest of the industry still advanced by more than 10 percent, against a typical second-quarter pattern of about 3 percent. Microprocessor revenue rose 16 percent, well above its usual 1 percent seasonal pace, as CPUs and accelerators take on more AI work.
First-half revenue reached $752B, more than any full year except 2025. Omdia expects the third quarter to top $500B, pushing nine-month revenue above $1.25T, roughly 50 percent more than the whole of 2025. The firm notes that memory’s outsized weight is skewing the headline trend for the rest of the market.
