SSD Market Fluctuation
A new market report says that Tsinghua Unigroup, a new rising star in the global semiconductor industry, is targeting the solid state drive (SSD) market where Samsung is enjoying an overwhelming market share. According to a Market View report by D-RMA Exchange, a semiconductor industry market survey organization on Oct. 25, Western Digital, a U.S. storage company is making a foray into the SSD market after taking over SanDisk, a NAND flash company. Tsinghua Unigroup became the largest shareholder of Western Digital by taking over a 15 percent stake in the companies.
Analysis shows that Tsinghua Unigroup, which indirectly took over SanDisk, made a big investment after taking into consideration potential demand for SSDs, a hot future item in the storage market. The Chinese government announced the promotion of its semiconductor industry by raising a fund of 120 billion yuan (US$18.9 billion). Industry experts analyze that China aims to raise its own supply rate as the world’s biggest consumer of SSDs. China accounts for 30 percent of global SSD demand.
The SSD market is estimated at US$13 billion. In 2019, the market will outgrow the HDD market by breaking through US$20 billion in 2019. According to HIS, a market survey organization, Samsung Electronics took up 42 percent of the SSD market, 2.6 times the market share of Intel (16 percent), in the second quarter of this year. SanDisk came in third with nine percent, followed by Micron and Toshiba, both of which inked a six percent market share, respectively.
Samsung Electronics beat Intel in market shares last year as the former chalked up 34 percent while the latter only got 17 percent. This year, the gap has widened. This means that Samsung Electronics has market control in the SSD market, which is as strong as its market share in the DRAM market. But SanDisk shares Fab lines with Toshiba, and has maintained a partnership with Toshiba, the original developer of NAND flash memory. This fact indicates that Western Digital now has great potential to chase Samsung Electronics.
Tsinghua Unigroup took over technological companies such as STEC, Velobit, and Skyera to reinforce its flash storage technologies before acquiring SanDisk. SanDisk received technology from companies such as FlashSoft and Smart Storage. “Samsung is enjoying a comfortable lead in terms of 3D NAND technologies and prices. Thus, other companies will need a lot of investments to catch up with Samsung,” the report says.