Samsung Electronics' Revenue Falls 1.4%
TSMC Up 14.1% from Previous Quarter
Third-Ranked Chinese SMIC Narrows Gap with Samsung
In the fourth quarter of last year, the gap between Taiwan's TSMC, the world's number one foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) company, and Samsung Electronics widened further. Samsung Electronics maintained its second-place market share, but its revenue declined compared to the previous quarter, and the gap with the third-place Chinese company also narrowed.
According to market research firm TrendForce on the 11th, TSMC's foundry market share in the fourth quarter of last year was 67.1%, up 2.4 percentage points from the third quarter. Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics' share fell by 1 percentage point from 9.1% to 8.1% during the same period.
As a result, the gap between the two companies widened from 55.6 percentage points in the third quarter to 59 percentage points in the fourth quarter.
TrendForce explained, "TSMC's wafer shipments increased thanks to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, flagship smartphone application processors (AP), and new PC platforms," adding, "Samsung Electronics' revenue slightly decreased as sales from new advanced node customers did not fully compensate for order losses from existing major customers."
The total revenue of the world's top 10 foundry companies in the fourth quarter was $38.482 billion, a 9.9% increase compared to the previous quarter ($35.01 billion). This growth is attributed to the overall industry recovery in AI semiconductors, data centers, smartphones, and the PC market.
However, during the same period, Samsung Electronics' revenue fell by 1.4%, from $3.05 billion to $3.26 billion. Samsung lost its lead in high-bandwidth memory (HBM), where demand is surging due to the AI boom, and has yet to join Nvidia's supply chain. Additionally, Samsung is unable to catch up with TSMC's revenue, which virtually monopolizes Nvidia's AI chip production.
On the other hand, TSMC's fourth-quarter revenue rose 14.1% from the previous quarter to $26.854 billion. Despite the first quarter of this year being a seasonal off-season, TrendForce expects TSMC to show relatively solid performance as demand for AI-related chips and advanced packaging continues. The revenue gap between Samsung Electronics and TSMC is also likely to persist into the first quarter of this year.
Chinese foundry companies are also making strides, threatening Samsung Electronics. SMIC, ranked third, saw its market share decline by 0.5 percentage points to 5.5% in the fourth quarter of last year due to customer inventory adjustments.
However, by expanding new 12-inch capacity and optimizing product mix to raise the average selling price (ASP), SMIC's revenue increased by 1.7% from $2.171 billion in the third quarter to $2.07 billion in the fourth quarter. SMIC also narrowed the gap with Samsung Electronics from 3.1 percentage points to 2.6 percentage points during the same period.
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