Q3 Foundry Hits Highest Sales Since Pandemic... Samsung Market Share at 9.3%

Taiwan Market Research Firm TrendForce Survey

Samsung Electronics' global foundry market share in the third quarter of this year has fallen to single digits. Its sales were the only ones to decline among the top 10 companies.

On the 5th, Taiwanese market research firm TrendForce released the sales and market shares of the world's top 10 foundry companies for the third quarter of this year. During this period, the total sales of the 10 companies increased by 9.1% from the previous quarter to $34.9 billion. TrendForce analyzed that the high demand for 3nm (nanometer, one billionth of a meter) processes helped break records set during the pandemic. The sales rankings of the top 10 foundry companies remained unchanged during the same period.

Q3 Foundry Hits Highest Sales Since Pandemic... Samsung Market Share at 9.3%

Samsung Electronics Hwaseong Campus view. Provided by Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics, ranked second in the foundry market, posted sales of $3.357 billion in the third quarter, down 12.4% from the previous quarter. Accordingly, its market share fell from 11.5% to 9.3%. TrendForce cited the main reason for Samsung's sales decline as the advanced process products entering the end stage of their life cycle. It analyzed that demand for flagship smartphones and PC-related key products stagnated, lowering the utilization rate of advanced processes. Additionally, in mature processes, intensified price competition with Chinese competitors increased pressure on sales decline.

On the other hand, No. 1 TSMC increased sales by 13%, expanding its market share to 64.9%. TSMC's third-quarter sales amounted to $23.527 billion. TrendForce diagnosed that the simultaneous launch of flagship smartphone products, AI GPUs, and new PC CPUs led to increased utilization rates and wafer shipments for TSMC.

China's SMIC, ranked third, increased sales by 14.2% from the second quarter to $2.171 billion through product mix optimization and additional 12-inch capacity expansion. This appears to be largely due to a strong domestic demand base in China and government technology support policies. SMIC's market share rose to 6% from 5.7% in the previous quarter. As a result, the gap with second-ranked Samsung Electronics narrowed from 5.8 percentage points to 3.3 percentage points.

Fourth-ranked Taiwanese UMC recorded sales of $1.873 billion, up 6.7% from the previous quarter, as both wafer shipments and utilization rates improved.