In the fourth quarter of last year, the gap between Taiwan's TSMC, the world's top foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing), and Samsung Electronics widened. Samsung Electronics maintained its market share as the second-largest, but sales fell compared to the previous quarter, and the gap with Chinese rivals also decreased.
According to the market research firm TrendForce on the 11th, TSMC's foundry market share for the fourth quarter last year rose by 2.4 percentage points (P) to 67.1% compared to the third quarter.
In contrast, Samsung Electronics saw a decrease of 1 percentage point from 9.1% to 8.1% during the same period. The gap between the two companies expanded from 55.6 percentage points in the third quarter to 59 percentage points in the fourth quarter.
TrendForce noted that the shipment of wafers from TSMC increased due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, flagship smartphone application processors (AP), and new PC platforms, while Samsung Electronics' revenue dropped slightly as new advanced node clients' sales did not fully offset the losses from existing major clients.
The total revenue of the world's top 10 foundry companies in the fourth quarter was $38.482 billion, reflecting a 9.9% increase compared to the previous quarter's $35.01 billion.
However, during the same period, Samsung Electronics' revenue fell by 1.4%, from $3.305 billion to $3.26 billion. TSMC's fourth-quarter revenue increased by 14.1% to $26.854 billion compared to the previous quarter.
Although the first quarter of this year is a seasonal off-peak period, TrendForce analyzes that TSMC is likely to show relatively steady performance due to continued demand for AI-related chips and advanced packaging.
Chinese foundry companies are also growing and threatening Samsung Electronics. The third-ranking Chinese SMIC recorded a market share of 5.5%, down 0.5 percentage points from the previous quarter due to customer inventory adjustments in the fourth quarter last year.
However, by expanding new 12-inch capacity and optimizing the product mix, the average selling price (ASP) rose by 1.7% from $2.171 billion in the third quarter to $2.207 billion in the fourth quarter. The gap with Samsung Electronics also narrowed from 3.1 percentage points to 2.6 percentage points during the same period.