Outperforming by Wide Margin
Samsung Electronics has been securing a dominant position in the global NAND flash market. It was found that the company more than doubled its market share gap with Japan's Toshiba, which ranked second in the 4th quarter of last year.
According to market researcher DRAM Exchange on March 8, Samsung Electronics ranked first in the NAND flash semiconductor market with a market share of 37.1% in the fourth quarter of last year. Sales were US$4.4739 million, or about 5.1444 billion won, up 19.5 percent from the previous quarter.
"Samsung Electronics dialed up its shipments by 11 to 15 percent, raised its average selling price more than 5 percent, and ramp up its sales nearly 20 percent," DRAMeXchange said "Samsung Electronics is maintain its leadership in the high-capacity NAND market such as embedded multimedia cards (eMMC) and solid state drives (SSDs). Samsung Electronics is streets ahead of its competitors in terms of market shares.”
The Korean semiconductor giant is leading the NAND flash market with its high-capacity, high-tech products using 3D V-NAND laminating technology. In particular, Samsung Electronics more than doubled its market share gap with Japan's Toshiba. Japan's Toshiba in the process of selling its NAND semiconductor business due to a loss in the nuclear power semiconductor business, posted sales of US$2.1998 billion, accounting for 18.3 percent of the market. Toshiba, which ranked first in the NAND market in 2011, was overtaken by Samsung in 2012. Since then, the gap had widened and finally doubled for the first time.
Western Digital of the US placed third with a 17.7 percent share (sales of US$2.127 billion), Micron fourth with a 10.6 percent share (US$1.272 billion), SK Hynix with a 9.6 percent share (US1.1268 billion), and Intel sixth with a 6.8% share (US$816 million). SK Hynix lost fourth place to Micron and the rankings of the two companies were reversed.
In the case of SK Hynix, shipment of embedded multi-chip packages (eMCP) swelled sharply on the strength of demand from Chinese smartphone brands, but DRAM shipments declined, DRAMExchange explained. As a result, its total shipments slid 3%, but sales grew 9% from the previous quarter due to surging NAND prices. However, Micron's sales grew 26.9% while boosting NAND shipments 26%, overtaking SK Hynix.
“The NAND market grew by a whopping 17.8% due to a serious supply shortage in the fourth quarter of last year,” adding, "NAND prices will continue to rise due to short supply in the first quarter of this year.”