Device makers got ready for the holidays early, boosting mobile DRAM orders in the second quarter for use in devices being manufactured now for sale in November and December. According to IHS, mobile DRAM sales hit $2.8 billion in the second quarter, up 26% from the first quarter.
DRAM (dynamic random access memory chips) for personal computers still comprise the lion’s share of DRAM orders. Mobile DRAM now represents roughly a third of the market. “Commodity PC DRAM continues to account for the majority of the DRAM space with the rest of the DRAM market represented by other segments, such as server DRAM, consumer DRAM and graphics DRAM,” said Mike Howard, senior principal analyst, DRAM & Memory, for IHS.
Samsung controls just under 50% of the mobile DRAM market, with South Korea’s SK Hynix and Japan’s Elpida in second and third place, respectively. Elpida was recently acquired by Micron Technology.
GPU Market Share
Imagination Technologies continues to lead the market for GPUs for personal mobile devices, but ARM and Qualcomm are gaining quickly. According to Jon Peddle Research, the market for SoCs with GPUs grew 81% from the first half of 2012 through the first half of 2013.
Imagination Technologies’ market share was 37.67% during the first half of the year, followed by ARM IP at 32.3% and Qualcomm at 18.4%. As recently as last year, Imagination Technologies had more than half GPU market for personal mobile devices. Peddle defines personal mobile devices as smartphones, tablets and gaming consoles, but not laptop computers.
Growing tablet sales in China are expected to contribute significantly to GPU growth during the next 12 months. Peddle said that ARM and Vivante are big beneficiaries of this growth. Vivante saw its GPU market share rise from less than 1% to almost 10% between the first half of 2012 and the first half of 2013.
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