Such firms, described as original design manufacturers (ODMs) by the market research organisation, recorded the same market share in 2008, reported a representative from Gartner.
Masatsune Yamaji, senior research analyst at the company, explained that supply chains in the semiconductor industry have become more complicated, making the role of the ODM more important.
Gartner listed HP as the leading chip consumer in 2009, followed by Samsung and Nokia.
He added: "Electronic equipment manufacturers made huge efforts to adjust their production and inventory in the first half of 2009 in order to deal with the economic downturn."
In total, the top ten ODMs accounted for $77.3 billion (£47.6 billion) of $226 billion semiconductor sector sales.
Gartner recently revealed that consumers could be set to spend $6.3 billion in mobile application stores in 2010, according to its research.
