As of the fourth quarter of last year, the combined share of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix in the global DRAM memory and NAND flash memory market reached 74.7% and 49.1%, respectively. In addition, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix also accounted for more than 20% of South Korean exports. .
However, the South Korean semiconductor industry has recently encountered unexpected obstacles. According to a number of foreign media reports, China has proposed to increase the proportion of semiconductor chips imported from the United States, replacing products from South Korea and China Taiwan.
Last year, China imported $46.3 billion worth of memory chips from South Korea, which accounted for 52.3% of China's memory chip imports. Compared to 2016, China's total amount of memory chips imported from South Korea increased by a staggering 51.3% year-on-year.
On the other hand, the United States sold 6.4 billion U.S. dollars worth of semiconductors to China last year, and only South Korea's memory industry exported 1.3% of its exports to China. Through calculations, we can see that if China replaces 5% of Korean chips with U.S. memory chips, South Korea will Loss of US$2.33 billion. If replaced by 10%, Korea will lose US$4.66 billion.
However, some experts say that the impact of China’s increase in the proportion of US imports of memory chips is limited because South Korea is the largest supplier on the market. Even if China wants to import more products from Micron Technology of the United States, due to insufficient capacity, the latter also It is difficult to satisfy too many orders. Micron Technology also has difficulty in increasing production capacity immediately because it usually takes two to three years.
Industry executives said: 'Micron Technology can supply more products in a year or two, but they will still face problems because Korean companies have pricing rights.'
Je Hyun-jung, researcher at the Korea International Trade Association, put forward different views. He said: 'The problem is that after the US company filed a complaint, the U.S. government is working hard to re-develop the chip industry. Although the chip is a tax-free product, it is not subject to anti-dumping. Tax implications. This is a problem that Korean companies can't solve. '