Samsung Electronics kept the lead in the enterprise solid-state drive (eSSD) market in the fourth quarter of last year. SK hynix narrowed the gap with Samsung Electronics significantly by increasing its share.
According to market research firm TrendForce on the 13th, total revenue for the top five brands in the eSSD market in the fourth quarter of last year was $9.92 billion (about 14.9 trillion won). That was up 51.7% from the previous quarter. TrendForce noted that as computing tasks for artificial intelligence (AI) inference spread widely, the required performance level for data storage systems rose sharply, driving revenue growth. It also said AI service corporations accelerated general-purpose server upgrades, and some demand shifted to SSDs due to hard disk drive (HDD) shortages, contributing to higher sales.
Samsung Electronics' eSSD market share in the fourth quarter of last year was 33.8%, down 1.3 percentage points from the previous quarter (35.1%). However, revenue rose 49.7% to $3.656 billion (about 5.468 trillion won).
SK hynix (including Solidigm) posted revenue of $3.26 billion (about 4.877 trillion won) for the same period, up 75.2%. Showing the strongest growth among major players, its market share increased from 26.8% to 30.2%. The gap with Samsung Electronics accordingly narrowed from 8.3 percentage points to 3.6 percentage points.
Micron's fourth-quarter revenue last year was $1.4 billion (about 2.0944 trillion won), keeping it in third place. Its market share was 13.0%, down slightly from the previous quarter (14.3%).