HBM market leader enjoys AI dividends! SK Hynix's annual profit exceeds Samsung for the first time.

Thanks to the reshaping of the competitive landscape by the wave of artificial intelligence (AI), South Korea's storage chip giant SK Hynix's annual profit surpassed its rival Samsung for the first time in 2025. At the same time, it still maintained a leading position in the high bandwidth memory (HBM) field used for AI chips. Data shows that SK Hynix achieved a record-breaking operating profit of 47.2 trillion South Korean won in 2025, surpassing Samsung's 43.6 trillion won. SK Hynix is almost entirely focused on storage chips, while Samsung's business spans multiple areas - including consumer electronics and contract chip manufacturing, with its storage chip business contributing around 24.9 trillion won in operating profit in 2025. SK Hynix's success is largely attributed to its leadership position in the global HBM field. The company is an important HBM supplier for AI chip powerhouse NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US), and this position seems to be further consolidating. It has reportedly secured around 70% of HBM orders for NVIDIA Corporation's latest AI and high-performance computing platform, Vera Rubin. This percentage far exceeds the earlier market estimate of 50%. Market forecasts currently predict that in 2026, SK Hynix will hold a 54% share of the global HBM4 market, with Samsung and Micron Technology, Inc. (MU.US) following closely behind with shares of 28% and 18% respectively. Counterpoint Research's Research Director MS Hwang stated, "SK Hynix is clearly an outstanding 'AI winner' in Asia." He added that, in the current stage of booming AI infrastructure development, SK Hynix's lead in quality and supply of HBM for AI servers and other chips is crucial. He pointed out that even though Samsung regained the top spot in storage revenue rankings in the fourth quarter of 2025, SK Hynix maintained its market-leading position in these two areas. Analyst Cecilia Chan stated that with SK Hynix's accelerated development of HBM4, better yields, and a solid supply agreement with NVIDIA Corporation, the company is likely to strengthen its leadership position in the HBM market (which is expected to expand at an annual compound growth rate of about 25% until 2030), despite Samsung's efforts to catch up. Its plan to invest 19 trillion South Korean won (approximately 12.9 billion US dollars) in building a chip packaging factory in Cheongju further demonstrates confidence in HBM demand and reinforces its market-leading position. However, competition is intensifying. Despite SK Hynix's early lead in the HBM field and winning the largest share of the NVIDIA Corporation HBM contract last year, competitors like Samsung and Micron Technology, Inc. have been making some breakthroughs. Samsung has expanded its HBM sales and stated that it will begin shipping HBM4 products featuring the latest sixth-generation HBM technology this year. Ray Wang, analyst at SemiAnalysis focusing on the storage industry and AI supply chain, stated, "We expect Samsung to make a significant turnaround in HBM4 and overcome last year's quality issues to supply NVIDIA Corporation's new products." Nevertheless, analysts expect SK Hynix to maintain a high market share and dominant position in the HBM4 field. Wang stated, "The competition for HBM4 is actually between SK Hynix and Samsung; we believe these two companies are more competitive compared to Micron Technology, Inc." "We expect SK Hynix to maintain its leading position in the HBM4 field, while Samsung will make substantial progress and become more competitive in the HBM4 field compared to the (previous generations)."