Samsung Electronics held on to the top position in the NAND flash memory chip market in the first quarter of the year, data showed on Sunday. iSupply reported that Samsung sold NAND flash memory chips worth US$2.03 billion in the January-March, accounting for 38.5 percent of the global market. Toshiba ramked second with $1.71 billion sales, or a 32.4 percent share, followed by Micron Technology with $920 million or 17.1 percent and SK hynix Inc. with $638 million or 12.1 percent.

NAND flash memory chips are used for smartphones and other mobile devices.

Samsung has started to mass-produce 128 Gb NAND flash memory chips based on 10-nanometer class technology earlier this year. The portion of NAND flash memory devices using 10-nanometer class technology is estimated to rise to 45.3 percent of Samsung's NAND flash memory products in the second quarter of the year from the 9.5-percent in the first quarter.