SK Hynix overtakes Samsung in annual profits for the first time
SK Hynix Inc. The logo is displayed on a glass door at the company’s Seoul office in South Korea on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014. SK Hynix aims to select a facility in the United States for its advanced chip packaging facility and break ground there in the first quarter of next year.
Seong Joon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
While SK Hynix maintained its leadership in high-bandwidth memory used in artificial intelligence chips, it surpassed its rival Samsung Electronics in operating profit for the first time in 2025.
The two South Korean memory makers went head-to-head this week, with SK Hynix reporting earnings on Wednesday and Samsung reporting earnings Thursday morning local time.
SK Hynix achieved a record operating profit of 47.2 trillion won for the full year, surpassing Samsung’s 43.6 trillion won. The comparison underscores South Korea’s rise in technology since SK Hynix was acquired by SK Telecom for nearly $3 billion in 2012.
SK Hynix focuses almost exclusively on memory chips, while Samsung operates in multiple lines of business, including consumer electronics and contract chip manufacturing. Samsung’s memory segment generated operating profits of approximately 24.9 trillion won in 2025.
SK Hynix’s success is largely thanks to its solid position as the global leader in high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, a specialized chip used in AI processors and servers such as those produced by SK Hynix. Nvidia.
“SK Hynix is clearly an outstanding ‘AI Winner’ in Asia,” said MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint Research, adding that its leadership in the quality and supply of HBMs and other chips used in AI servers is crucial in the current phase of the AI infrastructure boom.
Hwang said that although Samsung took the top spot in memory revenue rankings in the fourth quarter of 2025, SK Hynix maintained its market leadership in both areas.
However, competition is increasing.
While SK Hynix took the lead at HBM last year and won the lion’s share of Nvidia memory contracts, rivals like Samsung and Micron are making some inroads.
Samsung has expanded its HBM sales and said it remains on track to begin offering HBM4 products, its newest, sixth-generation HBM technology, this year.
“[W]We expect Samsung to show a significant turnaround for Nvidia’s new products, overcoming last year’s quality issues with HBM4,” said Ray Wang, an analyst at SemiAnalytics who focuses on the memory and AI supply chain.
Still, analysts expect SK Hynix to maintain its high market share and maintain its dominant position in HBM4.
“The HBM4 race is really between SK Hynix and Samsung as we thought [the] the two companies are more competitive than Micron,” Wang said.
“We expect SK Hynix to maintain its leadership in HBM4, while Samsung will make material progress and be more competitive than before in HBM4. [previous generations]” he added.
