Most of the global semiconductor industry is likely to be gloom, but South Korea's samsung electronics (005930 KS) relying on powerful technical advantages can enlarge the market share of some key products, and may even increase the revenue. This will be the third star, better than most peers in adversity.
The global personal computer (PC) sales fell, and smartphone growth slows, semiconductor industry suffered a heavy blow. Intel (INTC. O) announced this month that will be up to 12000 job cuts.
Qualcomm (end. O) said that in the third quarter chip (chip) shipments could fall by up to 22%. SK hynix (000660 KS) quarterly operating profit fell 65% on Tuesday, it was the worst performance for three years.
Samsung will be published on Thursday in the first quarter earnings, also hard to avoid the setback. Market is widely expected to samsung chip profit will drop, some analysts predict 1-3 month chip profit drop more than 10% from a year earlier. Chip business accounts for samsung in 2015, the proportion of the overall operating profit is slightly lower than 50%.
If competitors suffered a heavy blow, samsung is only flesh wound; As customers turned to for smartphones equipped with high-end energy-saving dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, and using 3 d NAND chip solid data storage drive, the south Korean technology giants even benefit in many ways.
"Samsung and its competitors in the field of DRAM and NAND technology gap has widened recently, which helped samsung to avoid the trade of decline in profitability," HI Investment & Securities analyst Song post sub said.
Even if samsung chip operating profit in the first quarter was down about 10%, but still could be a SK hynix nearly five times more.
The world's second largest chip maker who also happened to be the world's second largest smartphone makers, which makes its chips have a set of customers, this is no any rival samsung.
"This is the safety of samsung," began, an analyst with research firm Trendforce Wu said.
Samsung's new flagship model with joy (Galaxy) at the beginning of S7 smartphone sale is moderate, is expected to become the main driver of the company operating profit in the first quarter. Samsung said the first quarter operating profit is up 10.4% from a year earlier to 6.6 trillion won ($5.8 billion) in the (signs).
The main products for samsung, analysts on the future of the NAND chip is the most optimistic. Samsung was the first to use the so-called 3 d NAND technology of large-scale production of NAND flash memory chip maker, so as to help the company in the computer and the service is used solid-state drives to higher-margin products field dominate.
BNP paribas estimates that samsung NAND revenue growth of 16% this year, operating profit jumped 69%; Shipments may be more than the industry average, allowing the company to gain more market share.
Analysts said the leading technology for samsung profit help, while its main rival in NAND business - Toshiba (6502 T), SK hynix and light (MU) O) estimate that as many as three years behind in technology.
Investors and analysts also pointed out that the samsung in DRAM chips with excellent production technology, and compared with the smallest gap rivals, samsung also have at least one year ahead. In addition, the company can also mass production size less than the chip of competitors.
According to TrendForce, as in the fourth quarter of 2015, samsung has a 58% share in the mobile DRAM market. TrendForce data also showed that October - march mobile DRAM revenue accounted for more than half of samsung DRAM revenue overall.
