Samsung’s chip share slips below 30%

Samsung Electronics’ global share in the NAND flash memory chip market in the third quarter fell below 30 percent for the first time in 30 months.

According to data on Wednesday from DRAMeXchange, a research division of the Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce, Korea’s largest electronics company posted $2.45 billion in NAND flash revenue from July through September, up 8.2 percent from the previous quarter.

However, its global market share in the third quarter fell 1.1 percentage points from the second quarter to 29.7 percent. It was the first time since the first quarter of 2012 that Samsung had seen its share of the global market fall below 30 percent. In the first quarter of 2012, Samsung had a 27.6 percent market share.

A NAND flash memory chip is a nonvolatile computer storage device that saves data without power, which differs from DRAM memory chips. NAND flash is widely used in mobile devices, digital cameras and solid-state drives (SSD).

Japan’s Toshiba, which first developed NAND flash technology in 1987, was a runner-up with a market share of 22.6 percent. The gap between Samsung and Toshiba in the second quarter was 10.3 percentage points, but was cut to 7.1 percentage points. The company’s NAND flash revenue jumped 23.7 percent quarter-to-quarter, thanks to rising demand in China, according to DRAMeXchange.

U.S.-based manufacturer of semiconductor memory chips SanDisk was No. 3 and Micron was No. 4, followed by Korea’s SK Hynix.

SK Hynix, an affiliate of SK Group, had a market share of 10.3 percent as its third-quarter revenue jumped 21.7 percent from the second quarter. It was the first time the company achieved a double-digit market share since the third quarter last year. Its market share in the second quarter was 9.5 percent.

Industry observers said the rise of other chipmakers is due to strong demand for the iPhone 6. According to a report from Credit Suisse last month, Toshiba is the sole supplier of 128 gigabyte (GB) NAND, while SK Hynix, Toshiba and SanDisk supply 64 GB NAND. Hynix also supplies 16 GB NAND to Apple.

BY JOO KYUNG-DON [kjoo@joongang.co.kr]