October 25, 2024

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South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics will relinquish its top semiconductor supplier rank to US chipmaker Intel this year due to the weak memory chip market, an industry report showed Nov. 19.

The top-15 semiconductor companies’ sales are forecast to drop by 15 percent this year to $314.9 billion compared to 2018, and memory suppliers were poised for deeper declines this year, according to the market researcher IC Insights.

Korean chipmaker Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor sales were expected to tumble 29 percent on-year to $55.6 billion in 2019, falling behind US chip giant Intel’s $69.8 billion annual revenue estimate, IC Insights said.

Samsung’s semiconductor sales heavily rely on memory devices, such as DRAM and NAND flash, which had an industry downturn following a two-year boom, while Intel is a leader in computer chips. Intel held the No. 1 semiconductor maker title from 1993 through 2016.

“With a forecasted 34 percent drop in the memory market this year, Intel is once again expected to rank as the largest semiconductor supplier and have sales that are 26 percent larger than Samsung in 2019,” IC Insights said in a report.

SK hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker, was set to move down one notch to fourth place in the semiconductor rankings following Taiwanese foundry leader TSMC, it noted.

By Ram Garikipati and newswires (ram@heraldcorp.com)