In the first quarter of 2025, SK hynix will become the new industry leader by surpassing its old rival Samsung Electronics in the global dynamic random access memory (DRAM) market for the first time, thanks to the rapid growth of the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market. According to data released by global market research firm Omdia, this historic shift marks the first time Samsung has lost its dominance in the DRAM market since 1992.
SK hynix's first HBM product, launched in 2013, uses a vertical stacking architecture that stacks multiple DRAM chips on top of each other to achieve higher memory bandwidth and support faster data transfer speeds. In a highly competitive market environment, SK hynix is able to respond quickly to market demands and accelerate product development and mass production. For example, it took only four months from the development of the world's highest-capacity 12-layer HBM3 to the launch of the next-generation HBM3E, and in March 2024, it began mass production of HBM3E, becoming the first company in the world to mass-produce this product.
From a regional point of view, SK hynix, as a Korean company, has certain geographical advantages in its home country and neighboring countries and regions, and has close cooperation with many technology companies in Asia, and has a high market share. For example, China is one of the world's largest AI markets, and there is a strong demand for HBM, and SK hynix has a large share of the Chinese market by cooperating with many Chinese technology companies. In Europe and the United States, SK hynix also plays an important role. There are many world-renowned AI research institutions and technology companies in Europe and the United States, such as NVIDIA, and SK hynix is NVIDIA's core HBM supplier, providing it with a large number of HBM products, which makes SK hynix's market share in the European and American markets also considerable.
figure: SK hynix surpassed Samsung in the global DRAM market for the first time in the first quarter
While the overall DRAM market fell 9% QoQ to $26.33 billion in total global sales in Q1 due to lower contract prices and a short-term pullback in HBM shipments, SK hynix bucked the trend and increased its market share to 36.9% from 36% in Q4 2024. In contrast, Samsung's market share fell from 38.6% to 34.4%. In terms of sales, SK hynix reached $9.72 billion, ahead of Samsung's $9.1 billion.
This breakthrough was not only confirmed by market research firm Omdia, but also other research institutes such as Counterpoint Research and TrendForce ranked SK hynix as the No. 1 global DRAM shipment in the first quarter of 2025 in the report, with a market share of around 36%, further confirming its leading position.
According to Omdia's analysis, HBM's rapid growth is reshaping the global DRAM market landscape. In the face of the surge in demand for memory bandwidth due to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, SK hynix and Micron have both increased the proportion of HBM products, especially in the mass production layout of the next-generation HBM3E. According to forecasts, SK hynix will increase the proportion of 12-layer HBM3E chips in its total HBM shipments to more than 50% in the second quarter, and is expected to exceed 80% in the second half of the year.
As HBM becomes the core memory technology in the AI era, SK hynix has not only surpassed Samsung with its first-mover advantage in high-end memory technology, but also laid a solid foundation for future high-growth fields such as AI servers and data centers. In the future, the DRAM market competition will focus more on the technical strength and mass production capacity of high-performance products, and whether SK hynix can continue to lead the way has attracted much attention from the industry.
