by Anton Shilov
12/19/2002 | 04:06 PM
Gartner Dataquest company published their DRAM market tracking for the year 2002. According to the preliminary results, the world’s DRAM business grew approximately 36.7% this year and combined revenues of all memory makers involved achieved $16.212 billion annually. So, it is quite natural that all DRAM manufacturers experienced revenue gains this year.
The number one memory chips supplier Samsung Electronics remained on the top spot and even remain profitable, unlike almost all its rivals, while earning 50% more compared to the previous year. Their closest competitor is nearly 13% behind and it is not very likely that Micron will outperform Samsung next year on the DRAM market. Hynix “The Struggling” Semiconductor lost one and a half points of its market share this year, possibly due to several product lines shut down and overall market conditions. The highest climbing sensation of this year is Nanya, whose revenues are up 187.7% compared to 2001. Their market share also skyrocketed more than twice this year. By the way, about 90% of their manufacturing capacities are currently transitioned to DDR SDRAM, the highest percentage in the industry, so to speak. Infineon is another rising star in terms of revenue and market share gain, but unfortunately, they are unprofitable at the moment. <%BANNER[article]%>
| Preliminary top 10 worldwide DRAM vendors by revenue estimates | |||||
| Company | 2002 revenues (in US$ million) | 2002 market share (%) | 2001 revenues (in US$ million) | 2001 market share (%) | 2002-2001 growth (%) |
| Samsung | 4,992 | 30.8 | 3,200 | 27.0 | 56.0 |
| Micron | 2,791 | 17.2 | 2,260 | 19.1 | 23.5 |
| Hynix | 2,104 | 13.0 | 1,716 | 14.5 | 22.6 |
| Infineon | 1,981 | 12.2 | 1,154 | 9.7 | 71.7 |
| Elpida | 1,032 | 6.4 | 1,011 | 8.5 | 2.1 |
| Nanya | 785 | 4.8 | 273 | 2.3 | 187.7 |
| Others | 2,526 | 15.6 | 2,242 | 18.9 | 12.7 |
| Total | 16,212 | 100.0 | 11,856 | 100.0 | 36.7 |
There is no surprise that even despite of high earning figures most of the DRAM vendors are still making losses. According to Gartner Dataquest, this happens partly due to the absence of demand in 2001 and also due to the fact that memory makers constantly have to invest in new fabrication technologies and upgrade their manufacturing facilities.