Semiconductor Racing
Samsung Electronics has been on the verge of catching up Intel Corp. in the race of leading the semiconductor industry.
The Korean tech giant occupied an 11.6 percent share of the global semiconductor market in 2015, up 0.9 percentage points from 10.7 percent a year earlier, keeping the No. 2 position, according to US-based market researcher IHS.
Intel kept the No.1 position by recording sales of US$51.42 billion, up 0.7 percentage points from a year ago, posting a 14.8 percent market share, which narrowed the share gap with down to 3.2 percent.
In 2012, the gap in the market share between the two giants stood at 5.3 percentage points, which gradually narrowed to 4.2 in 2013, 3.4 in 2014 and 3.2 in 2015.
Samsung Electronics showed an 8.3 percent growth in sales, the sharpest growth rate among the global top 10 integrated device manufacturers except for NXP which showed 77.3 percent growth rate by increasing the sales through merging Freescale.
The industry is paying attention to the fact that the Korean IT giant’s growth is significant as its main business is the memory sector such as DRAM and Nand-flash, which have been suffering price falls owing to slower demands in the industry.
SK hynix accounted for 4.8 percent of the market last year, beating Qualcomm to become the global No. 3 player by inching up one step from the 4th position in 2014.