South Korea's Samsung Foundry Share Falls as TSMC Dominates Global Market
A market research firm says the global semiconductor foundry industry finished 2023 on a high, even as competition intensified between the leading players. TrendForce reports that the world’s top 10 foundry companies posted annual sales of about $169.5 billion, up 26.3 percent from the previous year, marking an all-time high for the sector.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) held its dominant position, with annual revenue around $122.5 billion and a 69.9 percent share of the market, up 36.1 percent year over year. Samsung Electronics’ foundry business finished 2023 with roughly $12.63 billion in sales and a 7.2 percent market share, down from the previous year by 3.9 percent in revenue and 2.2 percentage points in share. In the fourth quarter, Samsung’s figures rose modestly from the prior quarter, with revenue up 6.7 percent and share increasing by 0.3 percentage points.
TrendForce notes that demand for advanced fabrication processes remained robust in the fourth quarter, driven by supply shortages in AI accelerator chips such as GPUs for servers and Google’s Tensor Processing Units. In addition, new smartphone launches lifted wafer orders for mobile application processors, helping support shipments across the industry.
Among others in the sector, China’s SMIC posted a 2023 revenue of about $9.33 billion, up 16.2 percent year over year, but its market share slipped to 5.32 percent, down 0.38 percentage points. The report highlights the widening gap between TSMC and Samsung, with the year-end gap expanding from 55 percentage points in 2023 to roughly 62.7 percentage points in the latest figures.
The overall market context includes a continuing shift toward more advanced nodes. TrendForce points to strong demand for next-generation processes in late 2023, supported by new product cycles in mobile and AI-related compute workloads, while also signaling potential headwinds ahead.
Looking ahead to 2024, the firm cautions that rising memory prices could dampen demand for finished devices, potentially reducing orders in the second half of the year and creating greater uncertainty around fab utilization. This balance of supply and demand matters beyond Korea because it shapes global chip pricing, production schedules, and the availability of advanced semiconductors used in everything from data centers to consumer electronics.
For U.S. readers, the trends matter because a small handful of firms, led by TSMC, supply many of the most advanced silicon chips used in AI accelerators, servers, and high-end smartphones. Changes in their capacity, pricing, or ability to meet demand can influence American tech companies, supply chains, and national security considerations tied to critical infrastructure and manufacturing resilience. The findings also intersect with U.S. policy debates on semiconductor supply chains, on-shoring, and industry investment in key regions.