TSMC Dominates Foundry Market as Memory Prices Rise and US Supply Chains Strain
Global foundry supplier Trends force a record year, with TSMC accounting for almost seven in every ten dollars of revenue and Samsung facing a widening gap. TrendForce said last year the world’s top 10 pure-play foundries posted combined annual revenue of about $169.5 billion, up 26.3% from the previous year, the industry’s highest ever.
TSMC, the dominant player, reported roughly $122.54 billion in revenue and a 69.9% market share. The company’s top-line growth of 36.1% year-on-year was the fastest among leading foundries, driven by surging demand for advanced nodes used in AI servers, graphics processors, and specialized accelerators such as Google’s Tensor Processing Units.
Samsung Electronics ranked second, with annual revenue around $12.63 billion and a 7.2% market share, down from the prior year. The company’s year-over-year revenue slipped about 3.9%, and its share fell about 2.2 percentage points, widening the gap with TSMC to more than 60 percentage points.
In the fourth quarter, Samsung showed signs of improvement, with revenue up 6.7% from the previous quarter and its share edging higher by 0.3 percentage points. TrendForce attributed this to shipments of new 2-nanometer products and the production of logic dies for the higher-bandwidth memory standard HBM4, which are used in high-end AI and HPC systems.
China’s SMIC, the largest Chinese foundry, held third place with revenue of about $9.33 billion and a 5.32% share, up 16.2% from a year earlier. The company’s gains reflect broader demand dynamics in China’s chip supply chain, though its share remains well behind TSMC’s.
Looking ahead, TrendForce warned that rising memory prices could dampen demand for finished devices, creating uncertainty for orders and fab utilization in the second half of the year. The industry’s trajectory will influence US-facing supply chains, given the central role of leading-edge foundries in modern AI chips, data-center accelerators, and consumer electronics.
Why this matters for the United States: American technology firms rely heavily on foundries for cutting-edge semiconductors that power AI, cloud services, and advanced computing. TSMC’s dominance means supply stability and pricing for high-end chips can significantly affect the cost and pace of innovation for U.S. products from servers to autonomous systems. Memory and specialty-process demand also shape prices and availability of components used in data centers and electronics sold in the U.S. As policy makers seek to diversify supply chains and bolster domestic chip manufacturing, developments in Taiwan, Korea, and China’s foundry sectors will influence American industry, national security assessments, and investment in next-generation technologies.