November 28, 2024

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Samsung Electronics' chip manufacturing complex in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province (Bloomberg)

As global chipmakers struggle with a severe market downturn, Samsung Electronics managed to maintain its market share while seeing a sharp loss in revenue, data showed on Thursday.

According to market tracker TrendForce, global DRAM revenue fell by 32.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, when compared to the previous quarter, showing a decline similar to the 36 percent of the final quarter of the 2008 -- when the world was hit by a major financial crisis.

The top three DRAM suppliers, Samsung, SK hynix and Micron, all posted a significant on-quarter drop in revenue.

Samsung, the world’s largest memory chipmaker, witnessed its DRAM revenue standing at $5.50 billion, down 25.1 percent. But its market share edged up 4.4 percentage points to record 45.1 percent in the period, showing the only increase among the three top players that occupy over 95 percent of the global DRAM market, TrendForce said.

“Samsung was the most aggressive in the price competition during the quarter, so it was able to raise shipments despite the general demand slump,” the market tracker said.

Second runner-up SK hynix posed a quarter-on-quarter drop of 35.2 percent in DRAM revenue to about $3.40 billion, while Micron’s figure stood at $2.83 billion, a 41.2 percent slide.

TrendForce attributed the steep drop in overall revenue of the DRAM market in the fourth quarter to the plunge in overall average selling price, with inventory accumulating rapidly in the third quarter of 2022.

Among the major categories of DRAM products, server DRAM suffered the sharpest price drop in the fourth quarter, falling by some 23 to 35 percent depending on product type.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)