<p style="text-align: justify;">Applied Materials is a multinational American corporation. It has been dealing in the semiconductor industry offering supplies and soft wares to manufacture semiconductor chips used in electronics, flat displays for computers and smartphones etc. The firm was established in 1967 and headquartered in California, United States.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The firm has generated a strong figure of revenue of 17.25 billion US dollars and has involved an employment figure of almost 24,000 individuals (Applied Materials, 2021). From the opinion of the global semiconductor industry, the evaluation of Porter&#8217;s five forces would be a useful tool for maintaining prospect strategies to understand better the company standing position.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;">Competitive Rivalry in The Market</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The competitive rivalry in the semiconductor industry is high because of the businesses&#8217; increasing technology needs and digitization. As a result of this increase, several firms and corporations have captured the market to provide the semiconductor materials required to fulfil and maintain the infrastructure and constant innovation in the market, resulting in fierce competition among formed players. The company&#8217;s major competitors in terms of revenue in the market are Qualcomm, Arrow Electronics, Lam Research and PDF Solutions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Applied material is trying to give tough competition with a revenue figure of 17.2 billion US dollars, while others are standing at the figures of 23.5, 28.7, 10 billion and 88 million US dollars, respectively (Craft, 2020). The United States Is considered to be the prime house for the semiconductor industry and exports major of its technology to other countries. Therefore, the presence of such big names in the industry makes the competition fiercer among the firms.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;">Threat Of Substitutes</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The threat of having substitutes in the semiconductor manufacturing sector is considered low mainly of the availability of so many firms and the tools manufactured by them. It has the capability to keep innovating in a very short period. The semiconductor industry would respond immediately to a successful alternative by finding a way to manufacture the product independently.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Recent developments in research and new technology like Quantum computing have the potential to bring more innovation, but the infrastructure that will again be used is semiconductor-based (Mukhopadhyay et al, 2019). In addition, the use of technology can change the steps of the process of manufacturing the products, but it cannot be labelled as a replacement. Therefore, the risk of substitutes in the industry is minimal.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;">The Threat of New Entrants</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The threat of new firms in the semiconductor industry is considered low because of the number of operating firms in the market. The hurdles and barriers to entry in the market are established high enough with continuous innovation to keep the new firms away from stepping in. Establishing a Semiconductor firm&#8217;s structure and managing supply chain networks requires a lot of money and time. It demands a lot of research and development, making it extremely difficult for entrants to meet the requirements.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Apart from the capital hindrance, new firms have to deal with the economies of scale big brands have established and the expertise required for the innovation process. The use of Information technology and high participation costs are other factors creating hurdles in terms of operating and maintaining the firm (Powell et al., 2015). Hence, making fewer ways for new players.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;">Bargaining Power of Buyers</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Bargaining power of consumers in the context of the semiconductor industry is moderate to high because several firms provide similar options, and the industry is driven largely by the demand worldwide. Moreover, due to the increasing competition, the choices or platforms have also increased for the consumers to select from.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Consumers in the generic semiconductor industry have low switching costs since they can acquire from any semiconductor industry participant, reflecting the lowest prices accessible as long as the technologies remain compatible. (Ram and Wu, 2016). Keeping in view such behavior, the bargaining power of consumers is considered moderate in the sector.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;">Bargaining Power of Suppliers</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Bargaining power of suppliers in the semiconductor sector is moderate. Because the suppliers in the industry are in numbers and are aware of the key importance of the business, which favors them in bargaining. Furthermore, because not every supplier can meet the criteria of specialized enterprises, suppliers are far more influential than those in the huge generic semiconductor sector.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Capital equipment manufacturers, silicon providers, chemicals, solvents, water, energy, metals, and other materials utilized in semiconductor manufacturing are a few of the needs that firms require. These firms embrace a significant authority capability in the industry&#8217;s process dynamics and can change the semiconductor material prices (Siddiqui et al, 2017). Thus, in context to the industry, the bargaining power of suppliers is moderate.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">References</h3>
<p>Powell, D.M., Fu, R., Horowitz, K., Basore, P.A., Woodhouse, M. and Buonassisi, T., 2015. The capital intensity of photovoltaics manufacturing: barrier to scale and opportunity for innovation. Energy &; Environmental Science, 8(12), pp.3395-3408.<br />
Ram, J. and Wu, M.L., 2016. A fresh look at the role of switching cost in influencing customer loyalty. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics.<br />
Applied Materials, 2021. About | Applied Materials. [online] Appliedmaterials.com. Available at: https://www.appliedmaterials.com/company/about.<br />
Craft, 2020. Competitors. [online] craft.co. Available at: https://craft.co/applied-materials/competitors.<br />
Mukhopadhyay, A., Sen, B., Thapliyal, K., Mandal, S. and Pathak, A., 2019. Interaction of light and semiconductor can generate quantum states required for solid-state quantum computing: entangled, steered and other nonclassical states. Quantum Information Processing, 18(7), pp.1-23.<br />
Siddiqui, J., Ortega, J. and Albus, B., 2017, April. On the relationship between semiconductor manufacturing volume, yield, and reliability. In 2017 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS) (pp. SR-1). IEEE.</p>