Competition Intensifying in SSD Market

Competition in the solid state drive (SSD) market is heating up. SK Hynix, which took over the NAND business unit from Intel in 2021, expanded its market share with the launch of a new enterprise SSD. Samsung Electronics, the SSD industry leader, responded by coming up with an SSD for professionals.

Samsung Electronics announced on April 27 that it has released the T7 Shield, a removable SSD with strong durability. This product is the first to have IP65-rated waterproof and dustproof functions in Samsung Electronics’ portable SSD product lines, and is designed to withstand the impact of a drop from a height of up to 3 meters. It targets professionals such as YouTubers. It is compatible with a variety of devices such as personal computers (PCs), MacBooks, Android-based smartphones and game consoles. Users can choose between 1 TB and 2 TB products.

SK Hynix is focusing on the enterprise SSD market. At the beginning of this month, SK Hynix and its subsidiary Solidigm released their first joint product, the enterprise SSD P5530. Solidigm is a U.S. subsidiary set up to operate Intel's NAND flash business unit. The P5530 is a product introduced three months after SK Hynix’s acquisition of the Intel unit. This product supports a 4th-generation high-speed interface and is available in three capacities -- 1TB, 2TB and 4TB.

According to Omdia, a global market research company, corporate SSDs market shares in 2021 were 43.1 percent for Samsung Electronics, 21.2 percent for Solidigm, and 7.5 percent for SK Hynix.

As Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix launched new SSDs one after another, competition is expected to intensify in the SSD market. The global SSD market is expected to grow from US$18.6 billion in 2021 to US$36.7 billion by 2026, according to Omdia.