SAN FRANCISCO — South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has unseated Intel Corp. as the world's leading semiconductor vendor, at least for one quarter.
Samsung (Seoul) reported this week that its semiconductor division posted sales for the second quarter of 17.58 trillion won, or about $15.78 billion, besting the $14.8 billion in second quarter sales that Intel reported Thursday (July 27).
Analysts have been saying since early this year that Samsung could rise to No. 1 in chip sales in 2017, surpassing Intel, was had led the semiconductor industry in sales every year since 1992. The booming memory chip market, which is led by Samsung, is driving growth for Samsung and other memory vendors at a faster pace than makers of logic chips.
Market research firm IC Insights Inc. noted in May that the passing of the torch could occur in the second quarter, based on the second quarter forecasts issued by the two chip giants.
It's unclear how long Samsung can retain the top spot in chip sales. The market for memory chips is notoriously cyclical. Growth in sales for DRAM and flash memory chips has begun to slow, and analysts forecast that a downturn in memory may be looming late next year of in 2019 as new capacity comes online and new Chinese competitors enter the fray.
Samsung's strong chip sales lifted the conglomerate's overall profit in the second quarter to 14.1 trillion won (about $12.6 billion), the highest ever quarterly profit for the nearly 80-year-old company. Nearly 60 percent of Samsung's second quarter profit came from the semiconductor division.
—Dylan McGrath is the editor-in-chief of EE Times.
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