2019年12月17日星期二

Memory chip prices leap forward, the global scale doubled to 352 billion US dollars

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced its first-quarter financial report on the 26th. Profits increased by nearly 50% from the same period of last year and reached the highest level in more than three years. This made the world’s leading memory chip, mobile phone and TV maker finally get rid of Note7. The embarrassment of the cell phone "explosive door" and the haze of Vice President Li Zaiyu imprisoned for involvement in corruption scandals.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced its first-quarter financial report on the 26th. Profits increased by nearly 50% from the same period of last year and reached the highest level in more than three years. This made the world’s leading memory chip, mobile phone and TV maker finally get rid of Note7. The embarrassment of the cell phone "explosive door" and the haze of Vice President Li Zaiyu imprisoned for involvement in corruption scandals.

Samsung can have such a beautiful financial report, relying mainly on the panel and semiconductor sectors, especially the latter. At present, under the circumstance of connected devices such as big data and smart phones, the industry has created a surge of semiconductor fever, which has greatly increased demand, boosted semiconductor prices, and has benefited manufacturers such as Samsung.

Jump to the forefront of Silicon Valley

Nearly all electronic devices are indispensable to semiconductors. This Google-developed driverless car, semiconductor is also the core technology.

How exactly is God? The self-driving cars that many technology giants, including Google, are trying their best to develop, semiconductors are undoubtedly the brains of this new technology. You and I use a smart phone that can perform functions such as sending messages and streaming audio and video, as well as relying on semiconductors. The chip, which has stood on the forefront of today's Silicon Valley, has become the most sought after technology product.

Nearly all electronic devices and home appliances are indispensable for semiconductors. According to Gartner's data, there were approximately 3.8 billion connected devices worldwide in 2014, ranging from televisions, baby monitors, and thermostats. It is estimated that this year this figure will soar to 8.4 billion, and by 2020 it will increase to 20.4 billion. Analysts predict that if chip revenues do not triple over the next decade, doubling them will definitely not be a problem.

"This is just the beginning," said AvrilWu, an DRAMeXchange analyst who tracks sales and price movements.

The popularization of smart phones and the popularity of big data have spawned an unprecedented semiconductor fever. Which company can supply a large number of these necessary components is equivalent to ensuring that it is invincible in the market.

In this boom, chip makers such as Samsung Electronics, Intel, Qualcomm and Toshiba are all beneficiaries. Taiwan’s richest man, Terry Gou, is rushing to bid for Toshiba Semiconductor. The only thing he’s looking at is to further increase the momentum for growth.

Memory chip prices leap forward

Two main types of memory chips, NAND, which provides content storage, and DRAM, which dominates the device's versatility, have seen prices increase by 27% and 80% respectively from July last year to March this year.

Both of these chips, Samsung Electronics, have dominated the global market. The semiconductor division is also the gold medal in the Samsung Electronics Group. Samsung’s overall operating profit in the first quarter of 2017 accounted for nearly 64% of the chips, which is much higher than the 23% recorded in the same period three years ago.

Therefore, even if Samsung lost US$5 billion in large recalls of the Galaxy Note7 last year, driven by record-breaking semiconductor sales, operating profit in the first quarter still grew by 48%.

Samsung Semiconductor's operating profit reached 6.31 trillion won in the first quarter of this year, which not only created a record high, but also more than doubled over the same period of last year. Gross profit margin also expanded to more than 40%, which also rewritten the record.

This semiconductor fever also drove Samsung's stock price to rise by about 30% in the past six months, and it recently hit a new high.

As for other memory chip makers, such as SK hynix, its quarterly profitability is similarly high. Even suppliers of semiconductor materials such as Applied Materials have risen.

The global scale has doubled to 352 billion US dollars

Another data analysis company IHSMarkit's data shows that since 2003, the global chip industry's annual revenue has doubled to 352 billion US dollars, more than double the overall output of the US automotive industry. The trend of consolidation over the past decade, coupled with the high cost of developing new chips, has raised the barriers to entry, making it difficult for newcomers to join, leaving several existing companies to profitably share.

According to IHS Markit, Intel is the world's largest chip maker, with revenues of US$55 billion in 2016. Samsung followed suit with revenue of US$40.3 billion last year and Qualcomm’s third highest, US$15.4 billion. TSMC and other foundries were not included in the IHS Markit semiconductor data.

Global semiconductor revenue. (From the Wall Street Journal)

The chip industry can be divided into three main categories: The logic chip is the brain of a computer and determines its computing power. A computer’s logic chip costs about $75, while Amazon.com and Facebook use data server components that cost $4,000 or more. The other two types of memory chips, NAND, determine how much data or content your phone, laptop, or tablet can store; DRAM dominates your device for versatility.

Samsung, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, has a huge presence on the battlefield of semiconductors and is already the world’s largest memory chip maker. Samsung spent more than 15 years developing a new type of memory chip and also helped Samsung’s profitability. In addition, its logic chip share has gradually increased.

Analysts expect that the price increase of memory chips will slow later this year, mainly because more and more manufacturers have the ability to produce next-generation, high-end semiconductors. However, Samsung can quickly mass-produce new generation chips, so that it can retain its advantages. .

According to the investment company Susquehanna Financial Group and IHS Markit, the iPhone 8 is expected to be 100-200 dollars more expensive than the iPhone 7 last year, of which memory chips account for about 50-60 US dollars; Samsung's latest flagship Galaxy S8. The cost of memory chips is about 10 dollars more than last year's Galaxy S7.

Analysts expect the iPhone 8 to be priced at about $1,000, while the standard Galaxy S8 retails for about $750.

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