Research institute Gartner recently released a report that global semiconductor output grew by 13.4% in 2018, reaching $476.7 billion. Among them, Samsung benefited from the growth of the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) market, ranking first.
According to Gartner's statistics, the rankings of the four major semiconductor factories remained the same as in 2017 before 2018. Samsung's market share was 15.9%, ranking first; Intel's market share was 13.8%, ranking second. SK Hynix has a market share of 7.6%, making it the third largest manufacturer; Micron has a market share of 6.4%, ranking fourth.
In 2017, memory chips accounted for more than two-thirds of total semiconductor revenue growth, becoming the largest semiconductor category. The price increase caused by insufficient supply has become a key driving force for the growth of storage chip revenue. In 2017, the price of NAND flash memory chips achieved the first year-on-year growth in history, an increase of 17%; the price of DRAM memory chips increased by 44%.
According to Gartner's data, the memory market is driven by the average selling price of DRAM products. In 2018, revenue grew by 27.2%, accounting for 34.8% of the total semiconductor market. It is not only the largest semiconductor product market, but also the largest growth area. In addition, the NAND Flash market in the memory is oversupplied, and the average selling price of the products has fallen. However, due to the growth of the SSD market and the increase in smartphone memory capacity, NANDFlash revenue in 2018 still grew by 6.5%.
