According to a recent report from UK-based market analysis firm IHS Markit (reported by Digitimes), in Q3 2017 Intel lost the top spot in terms of pure revenues generated by the semiconductor business to Samsung, and the Korean tech company is expected to maintain its position in the fourth quarter of the year as well, though it remains to be seen what will happen. The market analysis firm noted that these recent calculations excluded the sale of components to third parties, as third parties themselves are credited with the sale of components into the merchant market.
Otherwise, Samsung has experienced an increase in revenues of more than 16 percent on-quarter, and 64 percent year-over-year from the memory business, whereas Intel’s memory business grew by 2 percent on-quarter and 37 percent compared to Q3 2016. Furthermore, Intel’s semiconductor revenues grew by 9 percent on-quarter and 5 percent year-on-year leading to U$15.9 billion in revenues over the third quarter of the year, however, Samsung managed to top that with semiconductor revenues of $16.5 billion in Q3 2017, representing a 15 percent quarterly increase and a 53 percent year-on-year revenue growth. In contrast, in the previous quarter before Intel was dethroned, the company secured $14.6 billion in semiconductor revenues whereas Samsung registered revenues of $14.4 billion.
As for the fourth quarter of the year, IHS Markit estimates that Samsung will remain the number one company in terms of gains from the semiconductor business, experiencing a growth of 6 percent on-quarter and 49-percent year-on-year, resulting in revenues of $17.6 billion. Meanwhile, Intel’s revenues from this area of the market will top $16.2 billion, growing by 2 percent on-quarter and a mere 3 percent year-on-year. IHS Markit expects demand from multiple market areas for both DRAM and NAND modules to remain healthy, and with new revenue opportunities in market areas such as IoT and artificial intelligence, both Intel and Samsung combined are expected to exceed $60 billion combined revenues from the semiconductor business throughout the entirety of 2017. Earlier this year several reports revealed that Samsung intends on investing heavily in the NAND flash memory area, and the company also announced that it will make a $7 billion investment in its NAND flash memory manufacturing operations in China over the upcoming three years.