Memory market grows on rising demand for AI, Samsung Electronics becomes world's top in sales (Korea)

According to US research firm IDC, Samsung Electronics is expected to record sales of $14.873 billion (USD) in the January-March quarter of 2024, becoming the world's leading comprehensive semiconductor manufacturer.
In the IDM market, Intel ranked first. Sales increased 78.8% compared to the same period in 2023. In second place was Intel of the United States, which increased 13.9% to $12.139 billion (about 1.7879 trillion yen). In third place was
SK Hynix came in at $9.074 billion (approximately 1.3365 trillion yen), followed by Micron of the United States at $5.824 billion (approximately 857.91596 billion yen).
The increase in sales was 144.3% year-on-year, the highest among the top 10 companies. The reason for the strong performance was the sales of profitable high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is supported by growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI).
IDC said, "HBM is 4 to 5 times more expensive than existing memory. Newly released AI PCs and AI smartphones use more memory than conventional devices.
"This is driving the growth of the memory market," he said. In fact, the sales of three memory manufacturers, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron, are in the top 10.
IDC believes that memory will be the driving force behind IDM growth as demand for AI increases in the data center market.