In the first quarter of this year, TSMC significantly strengthened its dominance in the global foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) market. Although Samsung Electronics maintained its position as the second-largest market share holder, its revenue declined compared to the previous quarter, while China's SMIC saw increases in both share and revenue, rapidly closing in on Samsung Electronics.
According to market research firm TrendForce on the 9th, the combined revenue of the top 10 foundry companies worldwide in the first quarter of this year totaled $36.43 billion, a 5.4% decrease compared to the previous quarter ($38.48 billion).
TrendForce noted, "Emergency orders from clients just before the U.S. mutual tariff exemption deadline and the continuing effects of last year's Chinese consumer subsidies program have partially offset the typical seasonal decline in the off-peak period."
The gap between the industry's top two, TSMC and Samsung Electronics, has widened further. TSMC's foundry market share reached 67.6% in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 0.5 percentage points compared to the fourth quarter of last year. In contrast, Samsung Electronics' share fell from 8.1% to 7.7%, a decrease of 0.4 percentage points during the same period. The gap between the two companies expanded from 59 percentage points in the fourth quarter of last year to 59.9% in the first quarter of this year.
TrendForce stated, "In the case of TSMC, wafer shipments related to smartphones decreased due to seasonal factors, but robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) high-performance computing (HPC) and emergency orders for tariff avoidance limited the decline in revenue to 5%, reaching $25.5 billion compared to the previous quarter."
China's SMIC, ranked third in the industry, threatened Samsung Electronics with increases in both revenue and market share. TrendForce explained that SMIC actively secured early inventories in response to U.S. tariffs and Chinese subsidies, offsetting declines in average selling prices (ASP).
Accordingly, the revenue for the first quarter of this year recorded $2.25 billion, an increase of 1.8% compared to the fourth quarter of last year, while market share achieved a gain of 0.5 percentage points to reach 6%. The gap between Samsung Electronics and SMIC narrowed from 2.6 percentage points during the same period to 1.7 percentage points.