Samsung Remains Dominant in the Smartphone Memory Market

Samsung Remains Dominant in the Smartphone Memory Market
Samsung

The global smartphone memory market registered a total chip revenue of $9.4 billion in the first quarter of 2020, according to Strategy Analytics. The research found that Samsung Memory, SK Hynix and Micron captured almost 84 percent revenue share in the global market.

Samsung maintained its lead in the smartphone memory market with 50 percent revenue share, followed by SK Hynix and Micron. The NAND flash chip revenue observed 4 percent year-over-year growth driven by price stabilization and higher capacity flash demand in Q1. The market was led by Samsung with a revenue share of 44 percent followed by Kioxia with 21 percent and SK Hynix with 16 percent.

The total DRAM market revenue for smartphones registered a decline of 4 percent year-over-year due to the seasonality and demand shift to other categories. In terms of market share, Samsung registered a revenue share of 55 percent followed by SK Hynix and Micron each having a share of 25 percent and 19 percent respectively in the smartphone DRAM market.

“The smartphone memory market experienced only a modest decline in revenue as the memory chip market rebounded from previous levels of decline owing to the correction of inventory and early chip orders from customers in order to manage future COVID-19 disruptions. Samsung Memory continued to witness traction for its UFS 3.0 Flash and LPDDR5 DRAM memory chips and managed design wins with leading smartphone OEMs,“ said Jeffrey Mathews, Analyst at Strategy Analytics.

The smartphone memory market will continue to be challenged by the fall in smartphone memory demand on the back of COVID-19 pandemic disruptions on global smartphone production and also causing demand for smartphones to drop significantly. However, the demand for high density memory chips featuring UFS 3.0 and LPDDR5 remains upbeat among smartphone OEMs.