Samsung Electronics saw its global market share decline across key businesses in 2024, including televisions, smartphones, and DRAM chips, as competition from China and other rivals intensified.
The South Korean tech giant has led the global TV and smartphone markets for over a decade and remains the top player in DRAM. However, its dominance is eroding as competitors gain ground.
According to Samsung’s annual business report released on March 11, its TV market share dropped to 28.3% in 2024 from 30.1% the previous year. Smartphone shipments fell to 18.3% from 19.7%, while DRAM market share slipped to 41.5% from 42.2%. Display panel share for smartphones saw the steepest decline, dropping to 41.3% from 50.1%. Meanwhile, Samsung subsidiary Harman’s digital cockpit—a key component in automotive electronics—saw its market share shrink to 12.5% from 16.5%.
This marks the first time since 2014 that all of Samsung’s major business segments have reported a decline in market share.
In response, Samsung has pledged to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) across its divisions and expand its portfolio of high-value products in semiconductors, TVs, and home appliances to counter rising competition.
The report also underscored growing concerns within Samsung’s semiconductor division. Notably, for the first time, the company acknowledged ongoing issues with yield rates in its foundry business, which has been posting losses for several years.
“The success of advanced semiconductor processes depends on securing long-term demand, and we are focusing on stabilizing yield rates in existing mass production lines,” Samsung stated in its business report. This marks the company’s first explicit mention of yield challenges since it began discussing its foundry business in annual reports in 2014.
Previously, Samsung positioned its foundry strategy around gaining market share by advancing cutting-edge processes ahead of competitors. In past reports, it outlined plans to reinforce technological leadership with the industry’s first 3-nanometer chips using Gate-All-Around (GAA) technology and to accelerate the development of 2-nanometer chips, despite ongoing multi-trillion-won losses. However, the company had avoided discussing yield issues until now.
In its 2023 report, Samsung announced plans to expand foundry capacity but did not mention yield concerns, despite posting losses of over 2 trillion won in the segment. The shift in tone this year suggests a strategic pivot, with a focus on improving yield rates rather than expanding production capacity, as Samsung looks to narrow the technology gap with Taiwan’s TSMC, the global leader in contract chip manufacturing.
TSMC is expected to achieve a 60% yield rate for its cutting-edge 2-nanometer chips by the end of 2024 and begin mass production in the second half of 2025. By contrast, Samsung’s yield rate for the same process is reportedly around 20-30%.
With TSMC widening its market share lead—now about 60 percentage points ahead of Samsung—and Chinese foundry SMIC narrowing the gap to just 2.6 percentage points, analysts warn that Samsung has little time to catch up.
Samsung’s report also pointed to challenges in its memory chip business, noting that AI-driven demand is rising, but supply constraints for next-generation graphics processing units (GPUs) pose hurdles. The company has struggled to supply high-performance high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to key customers such as Nvidia and major tech firms.
In the TV sector, Samsung cited intensifying competition and rising panel costs as challenges to profitability. Chinese manufacturers, which dominate the mid-to-low-end market, are now expanding into premium segments traditionally led by Samsung.
Meanwhile, in the smartphone market, Samsung noted that as the industry matures, software capabilities—including AI and security—are becoming as crucial as hardware advancements.
The company also flagged geopolitical risks, including U.S.-China trade tensions and raw material price volatility, as key concerns for Harman’s automotive business.
Despite these headwinds, Samsung said it will rely on AI and advanced technology to maintain its competitive edge. The company plans to strengthen its position in the premium TV market with AI-powered ultra-large screens, continue investing in AI-driven smartphone features, improve semiconductor yields, and diversify its display business beyond smartphones to bolster its premium TV panel offerings.
