Samsung strengthens lead in dram market, industry sales boom

With revenue of $3.8billion in Q2, Samsung's dram revenue expanded by 24.3% from $3.1bn in Q1 - the highest growth rate among the top five suppliers. The rise gave Samsung a 35.4% share of global dram revenue in the second quarter, up from 32.6% in the first quarter. "Samsung's memory business long has pursued a strategy of taking the leadership in investment in new manufacturing processes, allowing it be the first to move to advanced semiconductor process geometries, and thus enabling the company to make semiconductors at a lower cost and at greater efficiency than its competitors," said Mike Howard, senior analyst for dram technology at iSuppli. "The company's aggressive push into 40nm semiconductor lithography for dram manufacturing boosted the volume of its bit production dramatically. Meanwhile, Samsung's broad dram portfolio, including high-end devices like mobile and legacy parts, allowed it to achieve an average selling price (ASP) higher than the industry average." Samsung in the second quarter produced 1.2bn 1Gbit-density-equivalent dram units, up 13% from 1.1bn in the first. According to iSuppli, the dram market posted explosive growth in the second quarter. DRAM industry revenue in the second quarter rose to $10.8bn, up 14.4% from $9.4bn in the first quarter. Growth was driven by a nearly 5% increase in bit shipments and a 9% rise in ASP. From a revenue perspective, the second quarter was the best that the industry had seen since the end of 1995. Shipments for the period came in at 3.56bn 1Gbit-equivalent units, the highest level ever. Similarly, the $3.03 ASP for all dram parts is unequalled since the third quarter of 2008. iSuppli believes the expansion across multiple fronts is setting the stage for 2010 to possibly generate the highest annual growth in the history of the industry.