Samsung Electronics' semiconductor division fell behind the world's largest foundry company, TSMC, in sales for two consecutive quarters.
According to industry sources on the 9th, the device solutions (DS) institutional sector at Samsung Electronics recorded sales of 30.1 trillion won and an operating profit of 2.9 trillion won in the fourth quarter of last year.
Samsung Electronics achieved its largest ever fourth-quarter memory sales despite weak demand for mobile and PC applications last year, thanks to an increase in high-value product sales. However, Samsung Electronics ceded the market for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to its competitors amid surging demand.
Samsung Electronics is also unable to keep up with TSMC, which virtually monopolizes advanced AI semiconductor production. TSMC's fourth-quarter revenue last year was 868.46 billion Taiwan dollars (approximately 38.4 trillion won), the highest ever for a quarter. In the fourth quarter of last year, TSMC's revenue by application showed that high-performance computing (HPC) utilizing AI accounted for 53%, significantly surpassing the previously largest share of smartphones (35%).
As the AI semiconductor market began to flourish last year, both companies recorded similar levels around 28 trillion won in the second quarter, but the gap widened from about 3 trillion won in the third quarter to around 8 trillion won in the fourth quarter. In the third quarter of last year, Samsung Electronics' DS sector recorded sales of 29.27 trillion won, while TSMC made 759.69 billion Taiwan dollars (approximately 32.3 trillion won based on the exchange rate at that time).
Earlier, Samsung Electronics rose to the world's number one in semiconductor sales in 2021, overtaking Intel, thanks to a boom in memory semiconductors. However, starting from the third quarter of 2022, as the industry began to slow significantly, it allowed TSMC to reverse sales until the first quarter of 2024, also losing its top sales position. Subsequently, in the second quarter of last year, Samsung Electronics briefly reversed sales again, but alongside the explosion in AI chip demand, TSMC began to take the lead again in the third quarter.
However, there are also points raised that while Samsung Electronics is a comprehensive semiconductor company spanning both memory and non-memory products, TSMC only operates as a foundry, making direct performance comparisons difficult. An industry source noted, "Samsung Electronics has diverse business areas including memory semiconductors and semiconductor design, while TSMC's revenue was recorded solely from foundry operations, making straightforward comparisons challenging."