Steep memory market plunge likely to push Samsung’s 2019 semiconductor sales down by 20%.

IC Insights is currently updating its 2019-2023 semiconductor market forecasts that will be presented later this month in the March Update, the first monthly Update to the 500-page, 2019 edition of The McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry (released in January 2019).

For 2019, a steep 24% drop in the memory market is forecast to pull the total semiconductor market down by 7%.  With 83% of Samsung’s semiconductor sales being memory devices last year, the memory market downturn is expected to drag the company’s total semiconductor sales down by 20% this year.  Although Intel’s semiconductor sales are forecast to be relatively flat in 2019, the company is poised to regain the number 1 semiconductor supplier ranking this year (Figure 1), a position it held from 1993 through 2016.

Figure 1