Samsung Electronics dominated the global solid state drive (SSD) market with a more than 37 percent share in Q1, three times as large as its main Intel. Samsung saw its share in the global SSD market reaching 37.3 percent in the first quarter of the year, compared with 32.8 percent from the same period last year, according to the data released by industry tracker IHS.

Intel follows Samsung with a 12.2 percent and SanDisk with 11 percent. Micron Technology came in a distant fourth with 3.9 percent, and Toshiba has a 3.8 percent share in the global SSD market, according to IHS.

Global market research firm TrendForce said that the ratio of SSDs installed in laptop computers could exceed 50 percent in 2018, compared with more than 30 percent this year.

SSD prices have fallen gradually while hard drive prices remain at relatively high levels. As a result, the market price of 128GB SSDs will soon be lower than 500GB HDDs, and the price difference between 256GB SSDs and 1TB HDDs is less than $5.