SK hynix Sets Sights on HBM4 Leadership Amid AI Boom

View of SK hynix headquarters in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province (Image courtesy of Yonhap)

SEOUL, Jan. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – SK hynix Inc. said Thursday it will seek to secure overwhelming leadership in sixth-generation high bandwidth memory (HBM), or HBM4, as it did in previous generations, amid expected competition with Samsung Electronics Co.

“(The company) aims to take an overwhelming market share in the HBM4 sector, as we did for the HBM3 and HBM3E products,” the company said in a conference call held a day after reporting record-breaking earnings for 2025.

On Wednesday, SK hynix said it posted an annual record operating profit of 47.2 trillion won (US$33 billion) in 2025 amid the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, beating its rival Samsung Electronics’ total performance for the first time.

“Despite efforts to maximize production capacity, it is hard to meet clients’ demand 100 percent, and we expect some rivals to enter the competition,” the company said, citing “explosive” global demand driven by AI infrastructure investment.

SK hynix is currently in the final stages of preparing for full-scale production of HBM4, with samples already supplied to Nvidia. Samsung Electronics is also expected to start full-fledged production of HBM4 this year.

“We will maintain our leadership and position as the leading supplier based on performance, mass production capacity and quality,” it added.

Industry tracker Counterpoint Research recently estimated SK hynix will account for 54 percent of the global HBM4 market in 2026, followed by Samsung Electronics with 28 percent and Micron Technology Inc. at 18 percent.

(Yonhap)