Samsung Surpasses Intel Amidst AI Demand Surge

In the last quarter of 2023, the chip manufacturing industry saw significant shifts in its hierarchy: Samsung Electronics surpassed Intel in revenue among vertically integrated chip manufacturers. Samsung claimed the top spot, with an impressive 78.8% revenue increase, while Intel dropped to second place. While Intel’s revenue placed it in second, the company’s stock price reflected the challenges it faced in maintaining its lead, as shown in the Intel stock price chart. SK Hynix secured third place, boasting a significant 144.3% revenue growth. These developments underscore the competitiveness of South Korean companies and signal shifts in the market structure.

The primary driver behind the revenue growth for Samsung and SK Hynix has been the increasing demand for chips associated with the rapid development of AI technologies. These technologies require high-performance processors and permanent memory, which supports gaming platforms and cloud solutions. In recent years, Samsung has heavily invested in expanding its tech infrastructure and modernizing production facilities, enabling the company to respond more effectively to market needs.

Meanwhile, SK Hynix capitalized on the strong demand for its chips used in servers and mobile devices. Through effective management of production capacity and improved operational efficiency, the company’s revenue increased by a staggering 144.3%, mirroring the rising popularity of AI-driven automated trading.

AI development has significantly boosted demand for semiconductors. Training machine learning models requires powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) and memory controllers, driving up chip prices. In this highly competitive environment, manufacturers like Samsung and SK Hynix have successfully adapted their production lines to meet their customers’ growing needs.

With the ongoing semiconductor shortage and rising demand, chip prices remain high. This creates opportunities for manufacturers in both domestic and international markets. However, with increasing production volumes, Samsung also began to produce chips for external customers, sometimes even at a loss. This move was aimed at increasing market share and building long-term partnerships, despite lower margins.

Although producing chips for third-party customers has led to short-term losses, this aligns with Samsung’s strategy to strengthen its position in the market and maintain competitiveness. This may be a temporary measure to achieve more stable results in the future as the company is looking for ways to optimize its production processes and reduce costs to improve long-term financial performance. While Samsung doesn’t break down reports by each division, it did note that by the end of the second quarter, strong profit growth was driven by high demand for HBM, classic DRAM chips, and solid-state memory for server SSDs.

According to Samsung Securities, outside the memory market, the company’s semiconductor business suffered an operating loss of $346 million in the second quarter, alongside other tech giants. The lack of a sufficient number of large customers is believed to be hindering the development of Samsung’s chip manufacturing contract business. While high demand for TSMC services in the 3nm chip production field presents specific opportunities for Samsung, the company still needs to refine its advanced technical processes to meet the needs of the high-performance computing segment.

Thus, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have made significant strides in the semiconductor market, improving their positions due to revenue growth driven by high chip demand, particularly in the context of AI development. Despite short-term losses from producing chips for other companies, Samsung continues to explore ways to increase its market share and optimize its operations, which could lead to sustainable growth and a stronger market position in the coming quarters.