Last updated: September 30th, 2026 at 10:28 UTC+02:00


Despite uptick, Samsung foundry revenue remained far behind TSMC in Q2 2026

Its fortunes may improve further.

Adnan Farooqui

Reading time: 2 minutes

Samsung Foundry Logo SAFE Forum 2026 South Korea Event

Samsung Electronics

General

Samsung Foundry's Shin Jong-shin delivering a keynote speech during SAFE Forum 2026 event in Korea

TL;DR

  • Global foundry revenue reached $96.6 billion in Q2 2026, up 25% year over year on strong AI-related demand.
  • TSMC led the market with $40.2 billion in foundry revenue and a 42% share, up 34% from a year earlier.
  • Samsung was second but still far behind, with just 4% of foundry revenue despite gaining more orders this year.

Samsung's foundry business has turned a corner this year as it has picked up significant new orders, but the gap to TSMC is still quite significant.

The latest figures show that despite being second on the list of foundry revenue in Q2 2026, Samsung's 4% share of the revenue was still miles behind TSMC's 42% share.

TSMC remains the clear leader in the market

The latest data from Counterpoint Research shows that global foundry market revenue surged to $96.6 billion, a 25% year-over-year increase. This was primarily driven by increased production demand for AI GPUs, custom AI ASICs, and the wider AI infrastructure buildout that includes server CPUs, networking chips, and power management ICs.

TSMC continues to be the main beneficiary of the AI buildout cycle. Its revenue in Q2 2026 was up 34% year-over-year to hit $40.2 billion. This lifted the company's revenue market share to 42% in the quarter, making it the dominant player.

No other company came close to TSMC in generating the sort of revenues that it did from foundry operations. Even though Samsung came in second place, its foundry market revenue share came at just 4%.

It nevertheless is an improvement for Samsung as companies are now increasingly looking for additional foundry sources due to both capacity constraints and price hikes at TSMC.