Samsung disputes IDC's ranking of Hyundai as top memory seller
By Andrew MacLellan
Electronic Buyers' News
(12/07/99, 03:43:41 PM EDT)
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (ChipWire/EBN) -- Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. Ltd. is now the world's leading supplier of commodity memory chips with a 23.5% market share, following its acquisition of rival LG Semicon Co. Ltd. earlier this year, according to a preliminary report from International Data Corp., based here.
The IDC study, which projects year-end 1999 results, said Micron Technology Inc. o Boise, Idaho, will finish the year in second place, with a 17.6% market share, while Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., once the market's top memory supplier, will drop to third place with a 16.8% share of market.
The estimates are based on unit shipments of DRAM densities equating to 64 megabits.
Samsung executives blasted the report. Even if Hyundai is manufacturing more units than any other DRAM maker, its commodity focus is yielding lower average selling prices, Samsung executives said.
Samsung's internal estimates indicate that on a revenue basis the company will continue to lead the market with a 22% share, and will realize better profits than its rivals by targeting high-performance applications.
"Samsung is concentrating on higher-margin DRAMs -- the next-generation 128-Mbit chips, high-performance SDRAMs for servers, workstations, high-end PCs, and notebooks," said Y.W. Lee, president of the company's chip subsidiary, Samsung Semiconductor Inc.
Hyundai executives said their company's top ranking stems from increased capacity and early adoption of double-date-rate (DDR) SDRAM. Whereas Samsung has heavily promoted the rival Direct Rambus DRAM, Hyundai said DDR SDRAM is destined to enter nearly every technology market in 2000, facing competition from Direct RDRAM only in the high-end PC sector.
According to Hyundai, a survey of more than 40 customers revealed that DDR SDRAM is the fastest growing memory interface for graphics subsystems and servers, with additional applications in the networking, consumer electronics, and low-end PC markets coming on strong in 2000 and beyond.
Hyundai said that Rambus memory will account for no more than 5% of the world memory market next year, growing to 8% in 2001. Over that same period, DDR SDRAM will comprise 10% of the market in 2000 and as much as 40% in 2001, according to David Dorrough, product marketing manager for Hyundai Electronics America in San Jose.
That estimate differs sharply from Samsung's, which shows Rambus DRAM taking 10% of the market as early as 2000. Lee said earlier this week that Direct RDRAM will account for about 20% of Samsung's manufacturing output in 2000, while DDR SDRAM will make up 10% of production.
Even within the high-performance PC space, Hyundai said Direct RDRAM is faced with a three-fold price premium compared with the PC133 SDRAM it is designed to replace. DDR SDRAM, meanwhile, offers more bandwidth through its wider bus but carries only a 10% premium that will evaporate altogether by mid-2000, according to Dorrough.
What's more, he said, the Rambus price disparity will have the added effect of postponing adoption of the interface within the mid- and low-end PC markets.
"Customers are confused," Dorrough said. "Many said they will wait for the price to come down [before shifting to Rambus]. In the past, we have never seen a memory penetrate the mainstream PC market until it reaches price parity with the previous-generation memory."
Additional reporting by Jack Robertson |
