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In a surprising shift, SK Hynix has officially overtaken Samsung Electronics to become the world's number one memory producer by sales. The historic moment, a first since the company's founding over four decades ago, is a direct result of the explosive demand for AI and SK Hynix's winning bet on the high-performance memory that fuels it.
According to Q2 2025 market data from industry trackers like Counterpoint and Omdia (via Tom's Hardware), SK Hynix captured 36.2% of the market with $9.66 billion in sales, edging out Samsung's $8.94 billion and 33.5% share. The driving force behind this is SK Hynix's early and aggressive push into HBM3 and HBM3E, which has made it the primary supplier for Nvidia's AI accelerators, currently the most lucrative segment of the entire memory market. At the same time, the traditional consumer DRAM and NAND markets are still relevant for SK Hynix, as it posted its highest operating profit in over two years.
Samsung, long considered the undisputed leader, appears to have been caught on the back foot. Reports have been circulating for months about delays in getting its own HBM3E certified with key clients like Nvidia. This has reportedly cost the company significant market share in the AI space, forcing it to compete in the slower-growing legacy memory markets where it still leads.
The effects of this change are even being felt on the ground in South Korea, where a recent poll showed that SK Hynix has now surpassed Samsung as the most desirable employer for university tech students for the first time. Looking ahead, SK Hynix is already working on HBM4 and investing heavily in advanced packaging to tighten its grip on the AI memory market.
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KitGuru says: This is an interesting piece of news, as a report recently came out claiming that Samsung turned down an offer from Nvidia's CEO to partner up on HBM and foundry in 2018. If Samsung had taken Nvidia up on that offer, it would have benefitted greatly from the current booming AI GPU market.
