[One Thousand Characters a Day] Apple Nvidia Shockwave <4>

Editor's NoteThe commonality between Apple and Nvidia is that both have achieved rapid growth through innovation as top 10 global semiconductor companies and recognized the importance of strengthening the semiconductor chip ecosystem. The fearless challenges of their CEOs and continuous innovation laid the foundation for Apple and Nvidia's current success. Amid the global semiconductor supply chain crisis and large-scale investments in semiconductor production facilities, observing the growth process and trends of these market leaders will be key to predicting the future semiconductor market and the global economy. Word count: 1009 characters.

Since the advent of the PC, the semiconductor market has fluctuated greatly with major shifts. The principle that nothing is permanent holds true even in the semiconductor field. Companies that design chips and outsource production, those that provide advanced equipment, and companies that manufacture semiconductor products with manufacturing technology?all these major players dominate the semiconductor market. Beyond these, numerous companies such as design houses, design software firms, and semiconductor equipment manufacturers form the semiconductor ecosystem. Although various companies have dominated the market from the early semiconductor era to the present, it is AI that has mastered numerous keywords such as extreme miniaturization, EUV, multicore, and packaging. Only by aligning with these keywords can a company take a leading position in the semiconductor field.

As of the end of March 2024, the market capitalization rankings of semiconductor companies best reflect this situation. The order of Nvidia at 1st, TSMC at 2nd, Broadcom at 3rd, and ASML at 4th was unimaginable just ten years ago. Companies that align with the themes of AI, extreme miniaturization, and foundry are leading the market. Samsung, ranked 5th, has performed well as an integrated semiconductor company, but its business structure heavily focused on memory inevitably faces significant volatility depending on market conditions. Intel’s ranking decline also indicates that stock market investors do not highly value its large-scale investments in semiconductor manufacturing to catch up with TSMC. This reflects the difficulty of securing profitability even with massive investments.

Data analyzing semiconductor company revenues in 2023 also clearly shows the market trend. According to market research firm Gartner, semiconductor market revenue (excluding TSMC) decreased by as much as 11% compared to the previous year in 2023.

The biggest impact was on Korean companies. Samsung’s revenue dropped by 37.5%, and SK Hynix’s by 32.1%. Although Intel’s revenue also decreased by 16.7%, Samsung reclaimed the top spot in the semiconductor industry due to its much larger decline. Intel emphasizes maintaining its number one position through the expansion of its upcoming foundry business, but with limited recovery in CPU sales and no foundry order achievements, it could be overtaken by Samsung again at any time.

－Baek Jong-min, <Apple Nvidia Shockwave>, Sejong Books, 23,000 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.