Samsung
Tencent technology news according to foreign media reports, due to the weak demand for memory chips, Samsung Electronics may cede the throne of its global chip supplier to American chip giant Intel this year. According to the data of IC insight, an industry tracking organization, in 2019, the sales of memory chip market is expected to decline by 24%, which will reduce the sales of the whole chip market by 7% to US $468.9 billion. This could lead to a 19.7% drop in Samsung's chip sales
In 2018, 83% of Samsung's chip sales came from DRAM and NAND flash memory chips; Intel, an American chip company, focuses on non memory chips. IC insight's research report said that the declining market will help Intel regain its throne. Because Intel's chip sales are expected to be flat this year. The company has been in a stable position for 24 years from 1993 to 2016
Samsung maintained its throne in 2017 and 2018, thanks to the hot demand for memory chips brought by data center servers. Market researchers predict that Intel's chip sales will reach $70.6 billion this year, while Samsung will reach $63.1 billion. The report says: & ldquo; This year is likely to prove once again that the notorious integrated circuit (IC) industry cycle is still very active in the memory chip market& rdquo; The industry tracker also expects memory chip manufacturers to significantly reduce capital expenditure because they & ldquo; It is expected that 2019 will have a very difficult year & rdquo;. A source said that Samsung is trying to seek a breakthrough by strengthening its non memory chip business unit, which is less affected by the industry cycle. The source said: & ldquo; In addition to the credibility of the report, Intel has also shown strong strength in non memory chip businesses such as CPU chips, while Samsung is good at memory chips. In order to improve the profitability of the chip business, Samsung is accelerating the development of non memory chips& rdquo;
Lee Jae Yong, vice chairman of Samsung, recently said that the company would focus on cultivating non memory chip business. The decline of DRAM and NAND flash chip market will also reduce the profitability of memory chip suppliers including SK Hynix Semiconductor. Sk Hynix Semiconductor became the third largest chip manufacturer in the world in 2018. The report says: & ldquo; Similar to Samsung, the sales of SK Hynix Semiconductor, micron and Toshiba are also expected to decline significantly in 2019. This may cause the revenue of these companies to fall back to 2017 levels, or even lower than 2017 levels& rdquo;
Dramexchange, another industry tracking organization, said that due to falling demand and rising inventory levels, the whole chip market has entered & ldquo; Free fall & rdquo; Phase. The researcher said: & ldquo; Since the decline of the overall contract price in the fourth quarter of 2018, the inventory level has been rising. At present, most DRAM suppliers hold up to 6 weeks of inventory& rdquo;
According to the data of South Korea's Ministry of trade, industry and energy, the chip business accounted for 20.9% of South Korea's exports in 2018. Therefore, any decline in the price of memory chips may have a great impact on South Korea's economy. As of last Friday, the average price of Samsung 8g ddr4pc4-21300 DRAM memory chip was 48000 won (US $42.4), down 25000 won (US $22) from December last year
Source: (reviewed by Tencent technology / Lexue)