Mumbai, Feb 4 (IANS): Apple and Samsung Electronics were the top two semiconductor chip buyers in 2018, representing 17.9 per cent of the global market, a Gartner report said on Monday.

This is a 1.6 per cent decrease compared with the previous year.

The top 10 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) increased their share of chip spending to 40.2 per cent in 2018, up from 39.4 per cent in 2017.

"Four Chinese OEMs -- Huawei, Lenovo, BBK Electronics and Xiaomi -- ranked in the top 10 in 2018, up from three in 2017. On the other hand, Samsung Electronics and Apple both significantly slowed the growth of their chip spending in 2018," said Masatsune Yamaji, Senior Principal Analyst at Gartner.

The big Chinese smartphone OEMs in particular have increased their market domination by taking out or purchasing competitors.

As a result, semiconductor spending by the top 10 OEMs increased significantly and their share reached 40.2 per cent of the total semiconductor market in 2018, up from 39.4 per cent in 2017.

"Huawei increased its chip spending by 45 per cent, thus jumping in front of Dell and Lenovo to the third spot," added Yamaji.

Xiaomi rose eight places to grab the 10th position, increasing its semiconductor spending by $2.7 billion in 2018, a 63 per cent growth year-over-year (YoY).

"With the top 10 semiconductor chip buyers commanding an increasing share of the market, technology product marketers at chip vendors must allocate a majority of their resources to their top 10 potential customers," noted Yamaji.