SK Hynix Inc. logo is seen on a glass door at the company’s office in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Jan. 27, 2014. SK Hynix has selected a site in the US for its advanced chip packaging plant and aims to open there in the first quarter of next year.
Seongjoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
SK Hynix surpassed rival Samsung Electronics in operating profit for the first time in 2025 as it maintained its lead in high-bandwidth memory used in artificial intelligence chips.
The two South Korean memory makers went head-to-head this week, with SK Hynix reporting earnings on Wednesday and Samsung on Thursday morning local time.
SK Hynix posted a record operating profit of 47.2 trillion won for the year, surpassing Samsung’s 43.6 trillion won. The comparison reflects SK Hynix’s rise in South Korea’s tech space since it was bought by SK Telecom in 2012 for about $3 billion.
SK Hynix focuses almost entirely on memory chips, while Samsung operates in a wide range of businesses, including consumer electronics and contract chip manufacturing. Samsung’s memory segment generated an operating profit of approximately 24.9 trillion won in 2025.
SK Hynix’s success is largely due to its established position as a global leader in high-bandwidth memory, or specialized chips used in AI processors and servers, such as HBM. Nvidia.
“SK Hynix is clearly the preeminent ‘AI winner’ in Asia,” said MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint Research, whose leadership in the quality and supply of HBM and other chips used in AI servers has played a key role in the current AI infrastructure boom.
SK Hynix maintained its market leadership in both areas, even as Samsung regained the top spot in memory revenue rankings in the fourth quarter of 2025, Hwang said.
However, competition is growing.
While SK Hynix took an early lead in HBM, securing the lion’s share of Nvidia’s memory contracts last year, rivals such as Samsung and Micron have made some headway.
Samsung has expanded its HBM sales and said it is on track to start shipping HBM4 products – the latest, sixth-generation HBM technology – this year.
“(W)e expect Samsung to put last year’s quality issues behind it and make a big difference with HBM4 for Nvidia’s new products,” said Ray Wang, an analyst focused on the memory and AI supply chain at SemiAnalysis.
However, analysts expect SK Hynix to maintain its dominant position by maintaining its high market share in HBM4.
“The race for HBM4 is really between SK Hynix and Samsung because we think the two companies are more competitive than Micron,” Wang said.
“We expect SK Hynix to maintain its lead in HBM4, while Samsung will make material progress and become more competitive in HBM4 (than previous generations),” he added.