DRAM market posts healthy growth in Q3 - Nanya outshines competition

El Segundo (CA) - Despite concerns over a possible stagnation or decline of the global growth of the DRAM market, most memory manufacturers were able to achieve double-digit sequential sales growth in the third quarter of this year, according to a report published by iSuppli.

The overall DRAM market enjoyed revenue gains of 11.8 percent from $5.72 billion in Q2 to $6.40 billion in Q3. Only two suppliers in iSuppli's top-10 ranking, market leading Samsung and Powerchip in position 7, saw their growth to come in significantly below the average market growth rate. According to the market research firm, this was due to dependency on sales to the OEM contract market, where prices were lower than those in the spot market in the third quarter as well as a high percentage of Double Data Rate 2 (DDR2) SDRAM, which is presently facing oversupply and declining prices.

The clear winner of the quarter was Nanya. Gaining share at the expense of its larger rivals, the firm's DRAM revenue rose to $435 million in the third quarter, up 33.8 percent from $325 million in the second quarter. Other winners included Micron with revenue growth of 14.3 percent, Infineon with 15.0 percent and Elpida with 15.4 percent.

While Samsung continues to dominate the global DRAM market with a market share of 28.9 percent, Hynix was able to solidify its second-ranked position with a 16.6 percent share, as the company was able to offset its slower bit growth with rising average selling prices (ASP), iSuppli said. The company's DRAM bit shipments grew by only 3 percent, while its ASP increased by 8 percent during the quarter. Micron sits in third place with 15.0 percent market share.