Samsung Elec share in DRAM hits 8-year low amid market slump

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Samsung Electronics’ dominance in the DRAM market fell to an eight-year low in the third quarter due to weaker demand for mass-market memory chips for PCs and data servers.

According to Eugene Investment & Securities and market researcher International Data Corporation (IDC) on Tuesday, global DRAM sales sank 29.3 percent to $25.43 billion in the third quarter.

Samsung Electronics’ share in the DRAM sales fell to 41 percent by September ? the lowest since 2014 - from 43.7 percent in June as its DRAM revenue in the third quarter shrank 33.7 percent on quarter to $7.37 billion.

No. 2 SK hynix and No.3 Micron Technology saw their market shares slightly increase during the same period. SK hynix took up 29.5 percent, up from 27.6 percent, although DRAM sales fell to $5.29 billion from $7.01 billion. Micron’s share climbed up to 24.2 percent from 23.5 percent despite sales drop to $4.34 billion from $5.94 billion.

Samsung Electronics maintains it won’t be artificially adjusting output to improve sales and market share, whereas other memory players SK hynix and Micron plan to scale back investment and output during the industrial down cycle.

The market conditions however are worsening.

According to DRAMeXchange, prices of PC mainstream memory DDR4 8Gb averaged at $2.21 last month, down 23 percent from the previous month.

By Pulse