Taiwan's Mobile DRAM Industry is Marginalized Amid Vibrant Market Gain by South Korea

According to market research organization DRAMeXchange, South Korea bagged an overwhelming 85.9% of world market for mobile DRAM chips in the first quarter of the year, while Taiwan had only a slim 2%.

Samsung Electronics is the top winner in the competition, filling 70.9% of the market in the first quarter, sharply up from 53.5% seen in the fourth quarter last year. Around 30% of the company's mobile DRAM chips went into its Galaxy smartphones and tablet PCs.

DRAMeXchange ascribed Samsung's unmatched lead mostly to its focus on LPDDR2 mobile DRAMs and multichip packages. The organization estimated Samsung will expand acceptance of its LPDDR2 as its next primary task for driving up revenue.

Although Taiwanese chipmakers Nanya Technology Corp. and Winbond Electronics Corp. have branched out into the mobile DRAM sector from generic DRAM production, Nanya will only begin to send samples of 30nm LPDDR2 chip for verification at customers some time by the end of June and make the chips available on the market in the second half of this year. Winbond has begun delivering self-developed 45nm LPDDR1 chips bundled with its Pseudo SRAM chips, but they mostly go into feature phones rather than smartphones.

SK Hynix has ramped up shipments of 4Gb LPDDR2 chips, which are estimated to become the company's earnings growth driver in the second quarter.

Although Elpida Memory repeatedly assured its customers that it would ship mobile DRAM chips to them, financial difficulty dealt a heavy blow to the company's shipment of the chips in the first quarter.

Micron Technology is also a market participant, mostly making mobile DRAMs for low-end and middle-range smartphones. It has sent samples of 30nm chips for verification by customers. DRAMeXchange estimated the company would be able to boost its market share when working with Elpida on high-end chips.

The market research organization pointed out that although unit prices of mobile DRAM chips dropped 10-15% in the first quarter over the fourth quarter of last year, the industry worldwide generated 37% more revenue in the meantime as a result of 20% more shipment volume.

source & copyright: CENS