Samsung’s HBM4 chip sales top $1B four months after launch

Samsung Electronics has crossed the $1 billion revenue mark for its sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory chips, known as HBM4, just four months after becoming the first company in the world to begin mass production in February, according to industry sources reported by Yonhap News Agency.yna

The milestone represents a turning point for Samsung, which had fallen behind rival SK Hynix in the lucrative HBM market that powers artificial intelligence accelerators. Analysts expect Samsung's HBM4 revenue to exceed $1.2 billion by the end of June and surpass $10 billion for the full year.trendforce+1

A Race to Recover Lost Ground

Samsung's achievement comes after a difficult stretch. SK Hynix overtook Samsung in annual operating profits for the first time in 2025, buoyed by its dominance in HBM chips used in AI data centers. By the third quarter of 2025, SK Hynix held roughly 62 percent of the HBM market while Samsung trailed with 17 percent, according to Counterpoint Research.cnbc+1

Samsung shipped its first commercial HBM4 units in February 2026, delivering a consistent processing speed of 11.7 gigabits per second — about 46 percent above the industry standard — with total memory bandwidth per stack reaching up to 3.3 terabytes per second. The company has said it expects its overall HBM sales to more than triple in 2026 compared to the prior year.semiconductor.samsung

Capacity Expansion Amid AI Demand

Both Samsung and SK Hynix are scaling up production to meet surging demand from AI infrastructure builders. Samsung is reportedly expanding its HBM production capacity by around 50 percent in 2026, while SK Hynix has announced plans to increase infrastructure investment by more than four times its previously disclosed figure, according to Korean news outlets.datacenterdynamics

Bank of America estimates the total HBM market will reach $54.6 billion in 2026, a 58 percent increase from the prior year. Samsung is also preparing its next-generation HBM4E, with sampling expected to begin in the second half of 2026 and custom HBM samples reaching customers in 2027.news.skhynix+1

The Broader AI Memory Supercycle

The broader semiconductor industry continues to expand rapidly on the back of AI demand. At over $670 billion in 2024, the global semiconductor market is projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2030, according to Yole Group. The memory segment is growing even faster, with market researchers projecting it could surpass $325 billion by 2030.knowledge-sourcing+1

UBS has predicted SK Hynix will achieve approximately 70 percent market share in HBM4 chips for Nvidia's ↘ 0.98% next-generation Rubin platform, suggesting that while Samsung has recaptured momentum, the competition remains intense.news.skhynix