The warning signs were already there for a little earlier in the year. Finally, that’s it: analysts, such as Counterpoint and Omidia have been able to confirm that Samsung is no longer the number 1 of memory since Q2 2025, since it has been supplanted in terms of turnover by his compatriot SK hynix! A first for the latter since its creation.
Indeed, SK Hynix achieved a turnover of $ 9.66 billion during the second quarter, fairly comfortably in front of the $ 8.94 billion that Samsung generated over the same period. The two rival compatriots ensured 36.2 % and 33.5 % of the market shares during the quarter in question, highlighting Korean domination in this segment, which covers the dram, but also HBM. To top it off, SK Hynix has even become the employer most popular with students from Korean universities, also supplanting Samsung for the first time.
In short, it is a fairly historic upheaval. Sk Hynix can thank his high star, but above all his winning bet on HBM memory (High-Bandwidth Memory ), turn that Samsungcompletely missed. The choice of SK Hynix to engage early and aggressively on this type has therefore paid well. Indeed, in the middle of the AI boom, HBM has become very popular for corresponding accelerators and SK Hynix is visibly de facto that has become the main supplier of NVIDIA . Even for its RTX 50, Nvidia ended up largely replacing the Samsung GDDR7 initially used by GDDR7 from SK Hynix.
But we must not be fooled, it is the HBM and the success of the accelerators for theIAWho have contributed the most to the growth of SK Hynix, because the segments of the traditional dram and the NAND – also always dominated by Samsung – are far from having experienced the same progression in recent years.
Assuming successful HBM4 and the continuity of the success story of theartificial intelligenceSK Hynix is in principle very well positioned to consolidate its grip on this segment so juicy in particular. This is not the end of the beans for Samsung, determined to bounce back and get things back in hand. Admittedly, we will have to react quickly. And beware, Micron also prowls … (Source: Tom’s, Bloomberg)
