According to the latest research report by market research firm TrendForce, the gap between Samsung Electronics and TSMC has widened in the global foundry market in Q3 2022. As per TrendForce, Samsung grabbed a 15.5% share in the global foundry market in Q3 2022. This is less than what Samsung managed in Q4 2021. Samsung Electronics posted an 18.3% market share in Q4 2021, which declined to 16.3% in Q1 2022, and rose slightly to 16.5% in Q2 2022.
However, it has now dropped below 16% to 15.5% in Q3 2022, as per TrendForce. Samsung's sales stood at $5.584 billion, which is down 0.1% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, Taiwanese giant TSMC's share in the global foundry market rose from 52.1% in Q4 2021 to 56.1% in Q3 2022. Moreover, TSMC's share grew by 2.7 percentage points from Q2 2022.
TSMC also saw an 11.1% increase in sales growth, going from $18.145 billion in Q2 2022 to $20.163 billion in Q3 2022. Thanks to this, the gap between TSMC and Samsung, which was 33.8 percentage points in Q4 2021, has now grown wider to 40.6 percentage points in Q3 2022. BusinessKorea notes that this gap is due to Samsung's expansion of advanced processes.
Furthermore, TrendForce summarized its report by saying, “Most of the foundry companies were affected by a decrease in customer orders, but TSMC enjoyed a big increase in order inflow due to strong demand for new iPhones.” TrendForce is now gearing up for a new production plant in Arizona, USA, and has also announced that it will increase its investment in the country from $12 billion to $40 billion.
Samsung is also teaming up with an American firm to improve its semiconductor manufacturing yield. The South Korean firm had yield-related issues with its 4nm and 5nm process nodes and is eyeing to improve the yield by partnering up with US-based firm Silicon Frontline Technology. Also, the South Korean giant will be setting up new plants in Europe and will be outsourcing more chips to create a risk-free semiconductor distribution chain.
