From U.S. and Chinese Companies
Samsung Electronics has maintained its No. 1 position in the global DRAM and NAND flash markets for 30 and 20 years, respectively. However, chipmakers in the United States and China have begun to threaten its technological leadership.
Micron Technology, the largest memory semiconductor company in the United States, announced the world's first mass production of a 232-layer NAND flash in July 2022. At the time, Samsung was making 176-layer NAND flashes. An official of a semiconductor consulting company in Canada even claimed that Yangtze Memory Technology Corp. (YMTC) of China was producing 232-layer NAND flashes ahead of Micron. SK Hynix also announced last year that it succeeded in developing the world's highest layer (238-layer) NAND flash. Samsung started mass production of a 236-layer NAND flash in November 2022.
Currently, Samsung is leading the DRAM and NAND flash markets, with the market share gap with its rivals wider than 10 percentage points. The DRAM market was led by the “Big 3” -- Samsung Electronics (40.6 percent), SK Hynix (29.9 percent), and Micron (24.8 percent) -- as of the third quarter of 2022. In the NAND flash market, competition involved Samsung Electronics (31.6 percent), Japan's Kioxia (21.1 percent), SK Hynix (19 percent), U.S. Western Digital (12.4 percent), and Micron (11.8 percent).
Despite the wide market share gap, competitors are rapidly eroding Samsung's technological dominance. “The quality of YMTC's 232-layer NAND is known to be unexpectedly high, so Samsung is paying much attention to it with great interest,” an industry insider said.
"In the memory sector, Samsung is being chased by latecomers, while in the foundry business, TSMC is much ahead of it,” said an industry analyst. “Samsung is facing a big challenge.”