Samsung Narrows Gap With SK Hynix as HBM Competition Heats Up

While SK Hynix is leading the HBM market, Samsung is now catching up fast. The latter is rapidly expanding its technology, production capacity, and customer base. As such, the advanced memory market has heated up, raising expectations that Samsung could soon challenge SK Hynix’s dominance in this space.

Samsung closes in on SK Hynix in global DRAM sales

According to TrendForce (via Sisa Journal e), in Q3 2025, SK Hynix led the global DRAM market with a 33.2% share (in terms of sales). Samsung secured 32.6%, putting the two companies at almost the same level thanks to a strong comeback in HBM shipments.

Samsung previously faced setbacks with delays in Nvidia’s approval of its 12-layer HBM3E chips. This allowed SK Hynix to lead in the HBM3E segment, securing initial supply for Nvidia’s AI accelerators. Now that Samsung has entered Nvidia’s HBM3E supply chain and expanded sales to AMD and Broadcom, its DRAM revenue increased to 30.4% in Q3 2025 (compared to Q2 2025). During the same period, SK Hynix reported a 12.4% increase, slower than its previous quarter’s 25.8% surge.

In Q4 2025, the market may lean even further in Samsung’s favor as DRAM prices continue to increase. TrendForce forecasts that DRAM contract prices could jump by 45-50% quarter-on-quarter. As for total memory prices, including HBM, they may rise by 50-55%. Since Samsung has the largest production capacity, it could benefit the firm from this upward trend.

Samsung’s Pyeongtaek Plant 4 (P4) is ramping up DRAM production using the advanced 10nm-class 6th generation (1c) process. This technology will serve as the core die of HBM4, the next-generation high-bandwidth memory. For HBM4, SK Hynix and Micron are depending on the older 1b process.

As a result, Samsung may have an advantage in efficiency and performance, attracting major clients like Nvidia to place more orders. Industry analysts expect that by around 2028, both Samsung and Micron may overcome the HBM technology challenge and achieve profits similar to SK Hynix’s.