Samsung continued NAND flash market lead in 2012

Josephine Lien, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 5 February 2013]

Samsung Electronics continued to lead the global NAND flash market in 2012, despite a 4.9% decrease in sales of the memory, according to DRAMeXchange.

Samsung's NAND flash revenues for 2012 were US$7.29 billion, which gave the vendor a 38.2% share of the global NAND flash market in the year, said DRAMeXchange. Rounding out the top three were Toshiba and Micron Technology with 27.9% and 13.9%, respectively, DRAMeXchange indicated.

Samsung builds NAND flash memory using mainly 21nm process technology, and the company will develop 1Xnm-made chips for its embedded products and SSDs in the first half of 2013, DRAMeXchange said.

Second-ranked Toshiba reported US$5.32 billion in NAND flash revenues for 2012, down 14.6% from 2011, with its share of the global market also falling 2.7pp on year, according to DRAMeXchange. Toshiba has increased its NAND-chip production using 19nm process technology, and will continue its efforts to develop a newer 1Xnm node in the first half of 2013, DRAMeXchange revealed.

Micron moved up to number three in 2012 with revenues rising 9.7% to US$2.65 billion, DRAMeXchange disclosed. The firm also managed to expand its share of the global NAND flash market by 2.1pp to 13.9% in 2012.

Micron has been making significant efforts to grow sales of its embedded and SSD products, allowing the company's ASP to improve and become stable, DRAMeXchange indicated. In addition, sales of 20nm products are set to rise gradually as a proportion of Micron's total NAND flash revenues in the first half of 2013, DRAMeXchange said.

SK Hynix fell out of the global top-three NAND flash vendors in 2012, with revenues slipping 10.1% to US$2.26 billion, DRAMeXchange observed. Hynix captured a 11.9% share of the global NAND flash market in 2012, down from 12.3% in 2011 when the firm was seated in third place.

Hynix currently uses 20nm as the major production node for the manufacture of NAND flash, and the firm is looking to ramp up production using a newer 1Xnm process during the first half of 2013, DRAMeXchange noted.

Overall, the NAND market generated revenues of US$19.06 billion in 2012, down 6.6%, DRAMeXchange said. Revenues for the fourth quarter of the year increased 14.6% sequentially to US$5.3 billion, thanks to a pick-up in replenishment demand following new smartphone and tablet roll-outs, as well as some suppliers' previous production cuts, DRAMeXchange pointed out.

The growth in fourth-quarter 2012 could imply that a healthier supply-demand dynamic will likely be restored to the NAND flash industry in 2013, industry observers believe. However, supply-side developments, including Samsung's new China fab scheduled to open in early 2014, remain key to the market and price stability, according to the observers.