Samsung could topple Intel’s 24 year dominance of the global chipset market during Q2 2017, provided memory market prices are maintained or increased during the period, IC Insights predicted.

Intel held top spot in the worldwide chip market since 1993. However, in the latest in a series of regular reports on the sector, IC Insights forecast sales by Samsung’s chip making unit will hit $14.9 billion in the current calendar quarter compared with $14.4 billion for Intel.

“Using the mid-range sales guidance set by Intel for Q2 17, and a modest, yet typical, Q2 sales increase of 7.5 per cent for Samsung, the South Korean supplier would unseat Intel,” the research company noted in its 2017 McClean Report.

In the first quarter of 2016, Intel’s sales were 40 per cent greater than Samsung, but the latter increased sales revenue thanks to a rise in the average selling price of DRAM and NAND flash.

IC Insights predicted the: “tremendous gains in DRAM and NAND flash pricing experienced through 2016 and into the first quarter of 2017 will begin to cool in the second half of the year, but there remains solid upside potential to IC Insights’ current forecast of 39 per cent growth for the 2017 DRAM market and 25 per cent growth in the NAND flash market.”

If memory prices don’t tank in the second half of this year, Samsung could displace Intel in full-year semiconductor sales results as well, the report said, although for now it expects both companies to make around $60 billion.

The chip forecasts round out a good period for Samsung, after IDC last week announced the vendor maintained its position as the world’s largest smartphone vendor during the opening quarter of 2017.

While shipments of 79.2 million units during the quarter were flat year-on-year, IDC noted the vendor may have finally drawn a line under its Galaxy Note 7 problems following a positive initial response to its Galaxy S8, which was unveiled late in the opening quarter.