Samsung Loses DRAM Market Leadership as Revenue Drops 19% in Q1 2025

Samsung is no longer the leader in the global DRAM market in terms of market share. This directly affected its DRAM business revenue and dominance in the memory industry. Unsurprisingly, Samsung also suffered a drop of 19% in its DRAM revenue in Q1 2025, with SK Hynix taking the top spot.

Samsung’s DRAM revenue drops 19% in Q1 2025, SK Hynix takes top spot

Samsung has been desperately trying hard to secure deals with major clients for its HBM chips. However, the company continues to face multiple setbacks — it has yet to receive approval from Nvidia for its HBM3E chips. On top of that, due to the restriction on directly selling HBM products to China, Samsung is struggling in the DRAM business.

According to TrendForce, Samsung managed to earn $9.1 billion in revenue in its DRAM business in the first three months of 2025. This meant a sharp 19% drop in revenue compared to the previous quarter. As a result, it slipped to second position in this space, which is a concern for the company.

Meanwhile, its rival SK Hynix became the DRAM market leader with $9.72 billion in revenue. While SK Hynix also saw a drop in revenue (7.1% QoQ ), it still outperformed Samsung due to a large number of HBM3E shipments. Micron saw a 2.7% growth compared to the previous quarter and took the third spot with $6.58 billion in revenue.

The good news is that Samsung’s revenue gap to SK Hynix is not too big, so it can bounce back in the future. And while Micron is making progress in the HBM space, it won’t be easy for them to catch up either. Samsung has been adopting several strategies to gain a foothold in the HBM market, such as starting mass production of HBM4 chips early.

Speaking of the overall market, the global DRAM industry revenue was US$27.01 billion in the first quarter of 2025, which is a 5.5% drop from the previous quarter. The market suffered a decline due to lower contract prices for conventional DRAM and fewer HBM product shipments.