NAND Flash Business
Samsung Electronics continues to dominate the global NAND flash market during the third quarter of this year thanks to the rise in the demand for mobile chips.
According to market research firm DRAMeXchange, Samsung Electronics’ sales in the NAND flash industry increased by 10.5% from a quarter earlier to US$2.413 billion. In the same quarter, the global total sales were US$6.282 billion, 8.8% up quarter-on-quarter. The industry leader Samsung’s market share rose from 37.8% to 38.4%, too.
The continuous growth can be attributed to the rapid growth of the smartphone and tablet PC markets, which has led to an increase in the demand for mobile NAND flash products, and the increase in the sale of solid state drives for PC and server use.
In the meantime, SK Hynix’s NAND flash sales for the same quarter reached US$883 million, 5.1% higher than in the previous quarter. It ranked third in terms of market share by recording 14.1%. The company has converted some of its NAND flash production lines to DRAM lines since the fire accident in its Wuxi plant in China.
Toshiba followed Samsung Electronics with a turnover and market share of US$1.813 billion and 28.9%, respectively. The fourth and fifth places each were taken by Micron Technology (US$697 million and 11.1%) and Intel (US$476 million and 7.6%).