Taiwan's rapid rise, driven by the development of cutting-edge industries and technology, is fiercely catching up with Korea. Following TSMC's market capitalization surpassing that of Samsung Electronics, Taiwan is expected to surpass Korea in GDP for the first time in 19 years, indicating that Taiwan's industrial strategy of focusing on fostering cutting-edge manufacturing and the semiconductor industry is working.

According to TrendForce on the 25th (local time), Taiwan ranked first with 64% market share based on foundry sales in 2021, while Korea ranked second overall, but showed a gap of more than three times with 18% market share.





The gap widened further in the 2022 forecast, with Taiwan expected to rise 2 percentage points to 66% and Korea expected to fall 1 percentage point to 17%. In addition, China recorded 8% and others recorded 9%.

Samsung maintained its position as the leader in domestic foundries with an 18% share last year, but its forecast for this year is 16%, down 2%. DB HiTek has consistently maintained the 1% level.

Taiwan dominates the global foundry market, led by TSMC. TrendForce said, “Taiwan’s 24 fabs dominate 8-inch and 12-inch foundries,” and explained that TSMC is pushing forward with building six new fabs in Taiwan, the US, Japan, and China for new fab expansion plans after 2021.

TSMC has effectively taken over the majority of Taiwan's foundry market share, recording 53% last year and projecting 56% this year. In addition, TrendForce evaluated that "Taiwan's foundries such as UMC, Vanguard, and PSMC each have their own process advantages."




Taiwan's semiconductor industry cluster is evaluated as having a solid foundation. In addition to dominating the foundry market share, it also ranked 2nd with 27% and 1st with 20% in the IC design/packaging and testing industries. The competitiveness of system semiconductor companies ranked in the top 10 in the world, such as Novatek and Realtek, and semiconductor packaging and testing companies, such as Le Yue Guang and Syntec, has become a stepping stone for Taiwan's economic leap forward.

On the other hand, Korea is evaluated as having a weak related industry group as its share of the global IC design specialized company (fabless) market is only 1%. It was found that about 97% of domestic fabless companies are small and medium-sized enterprises with an average company sales of 2.2 billion won, 21 employees, and 7 years of business experience. There is only one domestic company among the world's top 50 fabless companies.

TrendForce said, “Taiwan has advantages in terms of talent, geographical convenience, and industrial complexes,” and “Taiwanese foundries are still focusing on R&D and production expansion in Taiwan.” Accordingly, it predicted, “Based on the existing production expansion blueprint, Taiwan is expected to continue its dominance in the global semiconductor industry by 2025, accounting for 44% of global foundry production and 58% of advanced processes.”