Rapid Increase of D-RAM Market Share of Samsung Electronics

It is forecasted that the world semiconductor D-RAM market share of Samsung Electronics will exceed 30% for the first time this year.

Samsung Electronics said on September 24 “the world market share which was 27% last year will exceed 33% this year as the supply of the international IT industries has been extended recently.

Samsung Electronics ranked first with 13.6% of market share in 1992. After exceeding 20% in 1999, it has exceeded 30% again after 3 years. Also last year, Samsung Electronics has maintained the high growth rate for 2 years as it increased by 6% compared with 27.0% of the market share in 2001 and it is an increased market share by 6% over 20.9% in 2000.

There were all 11 companies which showed over 1% of market share in the world D-RAM market last year; Samsung Electronics (1st rank), △Micron(19.06%) △Hynix (14.47%) △ Infineon (9.73%) △ Elpida (8.53%), and △ TOSHIBA (6.42%) in order.

D-RAM market share of Samsung Electronics sharply increased because customers of D-RAM semiconductors which were supplied focused on PC, Server and Work Station of US and Japan such as DELL, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Toshiba and NEC, recently have been extended significantly.

Recently, there are Nokia(mobile phone terminal firm), Cisco (internet equipment firm), ALCATEL (European largest communication equipment firm) and Legend (China largest PC maker) as new customers for the recent 1 and 2 years.

There are 70∼80% of the world market share for Play Station 2 and Rambus D-RAM. Also, the weight on products of the high value added got bigger through maintaining over 40% market share of DDR SD-RAM as a main force.

Hwang Chang-Gyu, a president of Memory Business Dept, Samsung Electronics said “Why the market share has increased by 6% for continuous 2 years is because Samsung Electronics has extended the difference from D-RAM competitors in all fields of the product quality and productivity.”

Joong-Hyun Park sanjuck@donga.com