By Baek Byung-yeul

Samsung Electronics failed to narrow its gap with Taiwan's TSMC, a leader in the global foundry business, in the third quarter, according to an industry data tracker on Monday.

The Korean chip giant's relentless pursuit of TSMC is expected to continue next year as the foundry industry, which manufactures chips for semiconductor design firms, is forecast to be impacted by a drop in demand for system chips and the global economic downturn.

According to semiconductor industry tracker TrendForce, Samsung's sales in the foundry business in the third quarter of this year stood at $5.584 billion to account for 15.5 percent of the global market for such products. The company's market share had risen to 16.4 percent in the second quarter from 16.3 percent in the first quarter.

This is the first time in two and a half years that Samsung's share of the market stood at around 15 percent since it logged 15.9 percent in the first quarter of 2020.

TSMC, on the other hand, showed its overwhelming dominance again, generating sales of $20.16 billion to take a 56.1 percent share of the foundry market in the third quarter. The figure marked an improvement from the second quarter when the Taiwanese company had a 53.4 percent share. The company controlled a 53.6 percent share of the market in the first quarter of this year.

The figures showed that the market gap between the two companies widened to 40.6 percentage points in the third quarter, from 37.3 percentage points in the first quarter and 37 percentage points in the second quarter.

TrendForce analyzed that Samsung's market share drop in the third quarter was "partially impacted by the weakening value of the Korean won" against the U.S. dollar, adding that TSMC displayed an uptrend.

"Only TSMC was able to make a notable gain due to Apple's strong stock-up demand for the SoCs (systems on chipset) deployed in this year's new iPhone models. TSMC saw its revenue rise by 11.1 percent quarter-on-quarter to $20.16 billion, and the corresponding market share expanded to 56.1 percent," TrendForce said.

Starting in the fourth quarter of this year, the global foundry business is expected to see the end of an upward trend that lasted for about two years, mainly due to a sharp decline in demand for system chips.

To respond to the demand decline, TSMC is actively expanding investments to increase its foundry capacity. On Dec. 6, TSMC held a chip-manufacturing equipment bring-in ceremony in Arizona, inviting U.S. President Joe Biden and Apple CEO Tim Cook. The company announced that it would increase investments in its U.S. factories to $40 billion, more than triple the previous $12 billion investment, to build two foundry plants.

Samsung's chip division is also forecast to hold a management meeting on Dec. 22 to discuss plans for next year. The company is expected to discuss how to narrow its gap in the foundry business and further widen its lead against rivals in the memory chip business where it holds the top spot.