Leading makers of dynamic random access memory continued to enjoy their market positions in the second quarter of the year with Hynix and Elpida demonstrating impressive improvements in terms of market shares and sales.

The world’s Top 5 DRAM vendors control about 81% of the market according to a preliminary market-share analysis from iSuppli agency published by Silicon Strategies web-site. The world’s ten largest DRAM companies command 97.5% of the market today, leaving not a lot of space for smaller memory producers.

In spite of all troubles and countervailing duties imposed by the USA and EU, Hynix Semiconductor continued to expand its presence of the DRAM market in Q2 2004 and even became the world’s second largest memory maker, leaving Micron and Infineon behind. Boise, Idaho- and Munich, Germany-based memory makers allocated some of their manufacturing capacities for non-memory products, whereas Seoul, Korea-based Hynix concentrated on DRAM business, which is believed to be a reason why the Asian memory maker managed to become No.2.

Samsung Electronics and Elpida Memory also succeeded in delivering strong results in the second quarter of the year, increasing revenues by 25% and 76% respectively compared to the previous quarter.

The overall DRAM market in the second quarter grew to $6.7 billion, up 21.4% from the first quarter, 2004.