[THE INVESTOR] South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics narrowed the revenue gap with bigger rival Intel, posting solid gains in semiconductor sales in the second quarter of this year, according to industry data Aug. 23.

Samsung’s semiconductor sales rose 11 percent on-quarter to US$10.3 billion for the second quarter, while Intel’s sales fell 1 percent to US$12.9 billion for the same quarter, data compiled by IC Insights showed. 




In the first quarter, Intel reported US$13.1 billion in sales of semiconductors and Samsung posted US$9.3 billion, according to the data.

Hit by slumping prices of DRAM chips, widely used in personal computers, Samsung‘s semiconductor sales had been on a decline.

However, a rebound came in the second quarter, thanks to strong sales of NAND memory chips for smartphones and other portable devices.

Samsung has also been narrowing the annual market share gap with Intel.

The market share gap between Samsung and Intel stood at 5.3 percentage points in 2012, 4.2 percentage points in 2013, 3.4 percentage points in 2014 and 3.2 percentage points in 2015.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)