SK Hynix surpasses Samsung for the first time to become the world's largest memory manufacturer.

Driven by demand for artificial intelligence, SK Hynix surpassed Samsung Electronics in the second quarter to become the world's largest memory manufacturer. Samsung's earnings report released on Thursday showed that its memory business revenue dropped to 21.2 trillion Korean won in the three months ending in June, lower than SK Hynix's 21.8 trillion won announced a week earlier. According to Counterpoint Research, SK Hynix, headquartered in Icheon, currently holds a 62% share in the crucial and profitable high-bandwidth memory shipments, with key artificial intelligence chip manufacturer NVIDIA heavily relying on its products. In contrast, Samsung only holds a 17% share in the business, and its most advanced memory products have struggled to gain NVIDIA's recognition. Counterpoint's research director, Huang MS, stated, "We have just witnessed a significant shift, with SK Hynix becoming the overall leader in the memory market for the first time in its history. The good news is that Samsung's HBM sales seem to have bottomed out." Huang pointed out that in the first half of 2024, as demand for NVIDIA's artificial intelligence products and the HBM they are equipped with increases, the growth trajectory of these two South Korean chip manufacturers will start to diverge. DRAM is the most common type of data processing memory in computers and servers. HBM is made up of multiple stacked DRAM chips.