Samsung vows to close HBM gap as SK hynix defends its lead

Samsung Electronics' headquarters in Seocho, Seoul, and SK hynix's main campus in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. [Yonhap]

Samsung Electronics has signaled its intent to rapidly expand its share of the high-bandwidth memory market in the second half of this year and mount a full-scale challenge to SK hynix for the top spot.

SK hynix, which secured an early foothold in Nvidia's supply chain and built a commanding lead in HBM, expressed confidence in defending that position, pointing to its deep customer relationships as a key differentiator.

With SK hynix having dominated the HBM race for nearly two years, Samsung is pressing ahead across the entire pipeline — from next-generation product development through to shipment — to close the gap.

At its second-quarter earnings conference call Thursday, Samsung said it expects to secure an HBM market share "equivalent to its overall DRAM market share" in the second half of this year, reigniting the rivalry.

According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, Samsung held a 38 percent share of the global DRAM market by revenue in the first quarter of this year, ranking first in the industry.

Its HBM market share, however, stands at around 21 percent — a wide gap behind SK hynix's 58 percent. The disparity is largely attributed to Samsung's late entry into Nvidia's supply chain for HBM3, the fifth-generation product.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang signs a Samsung Electronics HBM4 chip on display at GTC 2026, held in San Jose, California, in March. [Kim Hyun-il]

Having fallen behind in the HBM3E competition, Samsung is now banking on the sixth-generation HBM4 — with its faster development pace and improved performance — as the key to its comeback. The company projected that HBM4 revenue in the third quarter would more than triple from the second quarter, pointing to steep growth ahead.

Kim Jae-jun, executive vice president of Samsung's memory business division, said at the conference call Thursday that "more than 60 percent of total HBM revenue in the second half of this year will come from HBM4."

If Samsung delivers on that pledge and lifts its HBM market share to the level of its DRAM position through expanded HBM4 sales, SK hynix's dominance would face growing pressure and the contest for market leadership is expected to intensify.

Kim said customer evaluations of HBM4 products had been completed smoothly across all assigned tasks, adding that customer demand was expanding rapidly in line with the production ramp-up in the second half.

SK hynix pushed back against the competitive pressure, saying the capabilities it has built up across product performance, mass-production yield, quality and customer trust "are differentiated strengths unique to SK hynix that cannot be secured in a short period of time."

Kim Ki-tae, executive vice president in charge of HBM sales and marketing at SK hynix, said at the company's second-quarter conference call Wednesday that "HBM4 competitiveness is only complete when it encompasses the ability to deliver the performance customers require and to supply it at scale with stable yield and quality" — an implicit nod to the company's entrenched partnership with Nvidia.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and executives from SK hynix and SK Telecom met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang for dinner in Woodside, California, on Thursday (local time), reaffirming the long-standing partnership between the two companies. [Provided by Nvidia]

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had earlier described SK hynix as his company's "largest memory chip supplier" during his visit to South Korea last month, underscoring the close ties between the two companies.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won joined Huang for dinner on Friday (local time), the day before the San Francisco AI Summit, further cementing that relationship.

SK hynix has also signaled plans to scale up HBM4 mass production in the second half of the year and expects to generate greater profit than in the first half.

Kim Ki-tae said "the mass-production yield — the share of defect-free chips passing inspection — and quality of HBM4 have reached a level close to that of HBM3E, which has already entered a mature production stage."

Typically, yields are low in the early stages of mass production due to process instability, but SK hynix's HBM4 has rapidly caught up to the maturity level of its predecessor.

Meanwhile, market research firm TrendForce projected that Samsung's annual HBM market share for 2026 would rise from 20 percent to 28 percent, while SK hynix's share would slip from 59 percent to 50 percent.

joze@heraldcorp.com