South Korea’s semiconductor rivalry saw a major shift in 2025 as SK Hynix reported higher annual operating profit than Samsung Electronics for the first time, driven by booming demand for artificial intelligence memory chips. The earnings updates came this week, with SK Hynix announcing results on Wednesday and Samsung following on Thursday morning local time.
SK Hynix posted a record operating profit of 47.2 trillion won for the full year, beating Samsung’s 43.6 trillion won. The milestone highlights SK Hynix’s growing influence in the country’s technology sector since its acquisition by SK Telecom for about $3 billion in 2012. While SK Hynix focuses almost entirely on memory chips, Samsung runs a broader portfolio spanning consumer electronics and contract chip manufacturing. Samsung’s memory business alone delivered operating profit of about 24.9 trillion won in 2025.
A key driver of SK Hynix’s performance has been its strong lead in high bandwidth memory, or HBM, which is widely used in AI processors and servers such as those produced by Nvidia. “SK Hynix is clearly an outstanding ‘AI Winner’ in Asia,” said MS Hwang, research director at a research firm, noting that its edge in quality and supply of HBM and other AI server chips has been vital during the current AI infrastructure boom. Hwang added that SK Hynix kept its leadership position even though Samsung reclaimed the top spot in overall memory revenue rankings in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Competition is intensifying as rivals work to close the gap. Samsung has expanded its HBM sales and said it remains on track to start delivering HBM4 products, the latest sixth generation technology, this year. “[W]e expect Samsung to show a significant turnaround with HBM4 for Nvidia’s new products, moving past last year’s quality issues,” said Ray Wang, an analyst at an industry research firm. Still, analysts believe SK Hynix will hold a high share of HBM4. “The HBM4 race is really between SK Hynix and Samsung as we think [the] two companies are more competitive than Micron,” Wang said. Reports also suggest SK Hynix has secured over 66% of HBM supply orders for Nvidia’s next generation Vera Rubin products. In the third quarter of last year, SK Hynix held a 57% revenue share in the HBM market versus Samsung’s 22% and it also edged ahead in the broader DRAM market.
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