eFM News

Samsung Electronics continued to hold a tight grip on the global smartphone memory chip market in the first half of the year.

A report from industry tracker Strategy Analytics showed Thursday that in terms of revenue, Samsung maintained its top position with a 49 percent share in the January to June period.

Trailing in second was its South Korean rival SK hynix followed by U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology.

By sector, Samsung had a revenue share of 54 percent in the smartphone DRAM market in the first half, followed by SK hynix with 24 percent and Micron with 20 percent.

In the NAND flash market for smartphones, Samsung's revenue share was 43 percent, Japan's Kioxia Holdings had 22 percent and SK hynix 17 percent.

The market for smartphone memory chips had a combined revenue of 19.2 billion dollars, according to the report, and in the second quarter alone, the market saw a combined revenue of 9.7 billion dollars, up 3 percent on-year.

Jeffrey Mathews, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, "The smartphone memory market observed growth in revenue despite the headwinds in demand," adding that it was fueled by the shipment of high-density memory chips and recovering chip prices.

Stephen Entwistle, Vice President of the Strategic Technologies Practice at Strategy Analytics, predicted the market will continue to see an increase in demand due to "the seasonal factors in the smartphone market, along with rising momentum for memory chips with higher storage content and faster memory speeds."

He also said U.S. sanctions on China's Huawei Technologies could negatively impact the memory chip vendors.