UBS forecasts Samsung will win a 41% share of HBM bit shipments next year, ahead of SK Hynix at 39%, helped by early mass production of HBM4.
Samsung Electronics is projected to surpass SK Hynix in the high-bandwidth memory market next year, with UBS forecasting a 41% share of HBM bit shipments in 2027 versus 39% for SK Hynix and 20% for Micron. The bank said SK Hynix will remain the leader this year with a 48% share, but Samsung’s position is expected to improve after it became the first company to ship mass-produced HBM4 in February and expanded production capacity at Pyeongtaek and Yongin. UBS said the transition from HBM3E to HBM4 is reshaping competition because the newer generation relies more heavily on logic chip design, advanced packaging and wider data channels, areas where Samsung moved early. Nvidia is adopting HBM4 for its next-generation Rubin AI graphics processing unit, while AMD has selected Samsung as its main supplier and plans to use Samsung’s HBM4 first in its next-generation AI system, Helios. UBS said the shift in market leadership does not imply weaker growth for SK Hynix, pointing instead to a broader upturn in memory demand, with global DRAM bit demand growth expected to accelerate to 36% next year from 22% this year and NAND flash demand growth seen rising to 23% from 20%, even as supply constraints could keep the memory market tight through 2028.