TSMC, SMIC gain market from Samsung in 3Q24 foundry ranking

TSMC and SMIC took foundry market share from Samsung in a strong 3Q24 but with Intel Foundry Services not ranking in the top ten, according to Trendforce.

The market researcher estimates that the total revenue of the world’s top ten wafer foundries increased by 9.1 percent QoQ—reaching US$34.9 billion; an increase of 23.3 percent year-on-year.

The strength of the market was driven by supply chain stocking in preparation for smartphone and PC launches and by continued strong demand for AI server chips. Part of this growth was ascribed to a substantial contribution from the high-priced 3nm process. However, this has benefitted TSMC but not second-ranked rival Samsung. Behind the leading edge the US-China trade tension has benefitted SMIC.

AI and flagship smartphone and PC chips are expected to sustain demand for 5/4nm and 3nm processes throughout 2024 with CoWoS advanced packaging continuing to face supply shortages. 

However, for mature processes at 28nm and above uncertain end markets and a decline in stocking demand are expected to weigh on demand. This will be compensated for by Chinese demand due to old-for-new replacement subsidy programs, TrendForce said.

The rankings of the top ten foundries remain unchanged in 3Q24.

The launch of flagship smartphones, AI GPUs, and new PC CPUs drove an increase in TSMC’s capacity utilization and wafer shipments, resulting in a 13 percent QoQ revenue growth to $23.53 billion. TSMC’s market share advanced to 64.9 percent.

Samsung is struggling to renew advanced manufacturing with clients and at more mature nodes competition from China is forcing price concessions. As a result, Samsung’s dropped markedly to 9.1 percent as it suffered a sequential sales fall of 12.4 percent.

Chinese foundries SMIC, Huahong and Nexchip all picked up market share with double-digit percentage sequential sales growth.

Notably Intel Foundry Services, which had ranked ninth a year ago does not even make the top ten now.