Samsung Electronics could see its semiconductor chip sales surge as much as 50 percent this year to US$30 billion, IC Insights forecast on Sunday.

Samsung is off to a strong start toward that goal with sales of $7.14 billion in the first quarter, the U.S. market researcher said.

Intel topped the global memory chip market with sales of $9.49 billion in the quarter, followed by Samsung and Toshiba with $3.24 billion.

A boom in the memory chip market is driving up the performance of chipmakers including Samsung and Hynix, IC Insights said.

It attributed Samsung's brisk performance to its seizing the opportunity with a planned W11 trillion (US$1=W1,191) investment in its foundry business this year.

Samsung "would be responsible for 22 percent of the world's total semiconductor capital expenditures and would spend about as much as Intel and TSMC combined," the market researcher said.