DRAM scorecard:
Race tightens, but Samsung hangs on to lead
By Robert Henkel, Semiconductor Business News
Jul 10, 2000 (2:06 PM)
URL: semibiznews.com
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- What is arguably the hottest market battle going in the semiconductor business is in DRAMs. The race has certainly tightened, according to a new report from International Data Corp. that came up with the market share leaders in seven of the largest chip markets. Samsung and Hyundai are slugging it out for the lead in dynamic RAMs, IDC says. Samsung had what appeared to be a firm grip on the lead with more than 20% of worldwide revenues, the market researcher says. Hyundai was in No. 2 position but it was a good distance behind with 12.5% of the global market.
But last year, Hyundai's DRAMs sales shot up by more than 145%, thanks to acquisitions. As a result, its market share jumped to jumped to almost 21%, IDC says. Samsung hung on, however, and fought off the run by Hyundai. It kept the lead by increasing its DRAM sales by almost 60% and increased its market share to 21.7%.
Micron is also emerging as a serious threat in DRAMs, according to IDC. Its revenues grew 160%, driving the Idaho company's market share from 9.2% in 1998 to 16.1% in 1999. Again, acquisitions provided most of that growth.
IDC expects the competition in the DRAM market to heat up even more this year. "Despite the rapid growth that Samsung experienced last year, they'll have a tougher time this year as Hyundai and Micron not only continue to grow at a faster pace, but also continue to [integrate] their acquisitions into one unit," points out Soo Kyoum Kim, IDC's research manager for semiconductor programs.
Texas Instruments Inc. is hanging on in the hard disk drive (HDD) market, according to IDC. Its market share dropped from 32% in 1998 to 25% in 1999 due to a 17% decline in revenues.STMicroelectronics revenues here surged 142%, raising its market share from 10% to more than 18%, according to IDC.
Giving STMicro's sales here a big push was its growing leadership in the desktop HDD motor control segment, IDC notes. It made a big entrance in the desktop HDD read-channel business and added three customers for its desktop controller chip set, the market researcher notes.
In the PC graphics chip segment, ATI gained a firmer grasp on first place with $650.6 million in revenues, or 31% of the worldwide market. Several of its competitors here experienced declining shipments last year, and IDC expects this market to continue to consolidate this year.
In the first half of 1999, microprocessors was Intel Corp. in a runaway, but it turned into a two-way battle by the end of the year. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. coming up to take on Intel. During the first half, Intel's aggressive positioning of Celeron resulted in the exiting of IDT, National, and Rise Technology from the low-end PC market, while AMD slowly bled in margins, IDC says.
In the second half, AMD had rebounded strongly with its new flagship microprocessor Athlon,while Intel slowly began to face supply problems and play catch up in performance against AMD's processors.
The leading position in the flash card market belongs to SanDisk Corp. The vendor had a strong 90% growth in 1999, raising its revenues to $196 million. But its market share dropped from 35% in 1998 to 27% in 1999 as several other vendors were able to grow even faster than SanDisk. The overall market grew at a 145% rate.
Toshiba Corp. and Samsung Electronics will continue to be SanDisk's main challenge in the near term, according to IDC, but the market leader with its broad product portfolio is well positioned to take advantage of emerging applications for flash cards over the long run.
Conexant Systems Inc. is the leading vendor in the overall modem semiconductor market, according to IDC. Last year, the chip maker (spun off from Rockwell International Corp.) accounted for 30% of worldwide revenues of these chips. However, IDC believes that second-place vendor Lucent Microelectronics Inc., with 22% of revenues, has a broader product portfolio. Conexant is very strong on analog modems, but is a relative newcomer to the broadband segment.
In the LAN chip segment, Intel put more distance between itself and No. 2 vendor Lucent. Intel increased its market share from 21.8% in 1998 to 34.5% in 1999, IDC estimates. Lucent, meanwhile, slipped from a 20.5% share to 18.9% last year. Intel's performance was helped significantly by the acquisition of Level One.
But the vendor to watch in this segment, IDC says, is Broadcom Corp. This vendor increased its revenues more than 180% in 1999, while the overall market was up only 20%. |
