DRAMs recorded the highest sales among products in the semiconductor market in 2020. NAND flashes finished first in sales growth.

IC Insights, a market research company specializing in semiconductors, forecast in a recent report that global DRAM sales will reach US$65,215 million in 2020.

Following DRAMs, NAND flashes are expected to take second place with $55,154 million in sales. In addition, CPUs for computers, logic semiconductors, and mobile processing units (MPUs) for mobile devices are expected to stand high in sales.

"DRAMs posted the highest profit since 2017 after overcoming a slump in the memory market in 2019,” IC Insights said. “DRAMs will enjoy the largest market share in the global semiconductor market in 2021."

In terms of sales growth, NAND flashes are expected to post the biggest sales growth with a 25 percent increase. "Unusually, NAND flashes stayed strong in the first quarter of 2020 as their average sales price soared due to strong demand for them from manufacturers of servers for data centers," IC Insights explained.

With the advent of 5G smartphones, sales of MPUs for mobile devices are also expected to climb by 24 percent. Now that many 5G processors were manufactured with costly 5-nano processes, they helped increase sales, analysts said.

"As a prediction is made that COVID-19 vaccines will be developed and administered worldwide in 2021, the global GDP is expected to make a strong rebound and the world semiconductor market is expected to enjoy double-digit growth in 2021," IC Insights said.