The SK Hynix Inc. emblem is displayed on a glass door on the firm’s workplace in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014. SK Hynix goals to pick out a U.S. website for its superior chip packaging plant and break floor there across the first quarter of subsequent yr.
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Pictures
SK Hynix beat rival Samsung Electronics in working revenue for the primary time in 2025, because it retained its lead in high-bandwidth reminiscence utilized in synthetic intelligence chips.
The 2 South Korean reminiscence makers went head-to-head this week, with SK Hynix reporting earnings on Wednesday and Samsung on Thursday morning native time.
SK Hynix posted a document working revenue of 47.2 trillion received for the complete yr, surpassing Samsung’s 43.6 trillion received. The comparability underscores SK Hynix’s ascension in South Korea’s tech house because it was acquired by SK Telecom for about $3 billion in 2012.
SK Hynix focuses virtually totally on reminiscence chips, whereas Samsung operates throughout a number of companies, together with shopper electronics and contract chip manufacturing. Samsung’s reminiscence section generated working earnings of about 24.9 trillion received in 2025.
SK Hynix’s success is largely due to its entrenched place as the worldwide chief in high-bandwidth reminiscence, or HBM, a specialised chip utilized in AI processors and servers similar to these produced by Nvidia.
“SK Hynix is clearly an impressive ‘AI Winner’ in Asia,” mentioned MS Hwang, analysis director at Counterpoint Analysis, including that its lead in high quality and provide of HBMs and different chips utilized in AI servers has been essential within the present part of the AI infrastructure growth.
SK Hynix has maintained its market lead in each areas, whilst Samsung regained the highest spot in reminiscence income rankings within the fourth quarter of 2025, mentioned Hwang.
Nevertheless, competitors is ramping up.
Whereas SK Hynix managed to achieve an early lead in HBM and secured the lion’s share of Nvidia reminiscence contracts final yr, rivals like Samsung and Micron have been making some breakthroughs.
Samsung has expanded its HBM gross sales and mentioned it stays on observe to start delivering HBM4 merchandise — the most recent, sixth-generation HBM know-how — this yr.
“[W]e anticipate Samsung to indicate a big turnaround with HBM4 for Nvidia’s new merchandise, transferring previous final yr’s high quality points,” mentioned Ray Wang, an analyst at SemiAnalysis centered on reminiscence and the AI provide chain.
Nonetheless, analysts anticipate SK Hynix to retain excessive market share in HBM4 and keep its dominant place.
“The HBM4 race is basically between SK Hynix and Samsung as we expect [the] two firms are extra aggressive than Micron,” mentioned Wang.
“We anticipate SK Hynix to take care of its lead in HBM4, whereas Samsung to make materials progress and develop into extra aggressive in HBM4 than [previous generations],” he added.
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