Global NAND flash market share by company. Source: Counterpoint Research
Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) retained its top position in the global NAND flash memory market in the first quarter, the company said.
According to market research firm Counterpoint Research on Tuesday, NAND market revenue in the first quarter rose 3.5-fold from a year earlier, driven by price increases stemming from a memory supply-demand imbalance. Revenue also grew 90% from the previous quarter.
Samsung Electronics took first place with a 29% market share. SK hynix (000660.KS) followed in second with 18%, while Kioxia ranked third with 14%. U.S.-based Micron came in fourth with a 13% share.
The gap between Samsung Electronics and SK hynix widened. The 5-percentage-point difference between the two companies in the fourth quarter of last year expanded to 11 percentage points in the first quarter of this year.
Chinese competitors are also catching up at a faster pace. YMTC’s market share, which stood at around 8% a year ago, rose to 13% in the first quarter, narrowing the gap with SanDisk and Micron.
“If YMTC secures additional funding through an IPO, it could embark on full-scale production capacity expansion,” said Hwang Min-sung, research director at Counterpoint Research.
Growing AI demand is also reshaping the NAND market’s product mix. Enterprise SSDs (eSSDs) for servers accounted for 43% of the total NAND market in the first quarter, and their share is expected to exceed 60% by year-end.