Dwindling Market Share
Samsung Electronics’ gap with TSMC in the global foundry market widened in the third quarter of 2022.
Samsung posted a 15.5 percent share in the foundry market in the third quarter, Taiwanese market research firm TrendForce said on Dec. 11. The company's market share rose to 18.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021, but declined to 16.3 percent in the first quarter of this year and 16.5 percent in the second quarter and below 16 percent in the third quarter. Its sales came in at US$5.584 billion, down 0.1 percent from the previous quarter.
TSMC's share rose from 52.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year to 56.1 percent in the third quarter of 2022. Its share grew by 2.7 percentage points from the previous quarter. Sales climbed 11.1 percent from US$18.145 billion in the second quarter to US$20.163 billion in the third quarter.
The market share gap between Samsung Electronics and TSMC narrowed to 33.8 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2021 due to Samsung's expansion of advanced processes, but widened to 40.6 percentage points in the third quarter of 2022.
“Most of the foundry companies were affected by a decrease in customer orders, but TSMC enjoyed a big increase in order inflow due to strong demand for new iPhones,” TrendForce said.
TSMC is building a new production plant in Arizona of the United States and recently announced it would ramp up its investment in the U.S. from US$12 billion to US$40 billion.