Samsung has likely overtaken its top rival in AI memory chip revenue

SK Hynix is the leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory or HBM chips used in AI accelerators. Samsung has managed to turn things around with HBM4, and is now hot on the heels of its top rival in this sector.

Analysts believe that Samsung Electronics has likely overtaken SK Hynix in HBM chip revenue for the third quarter of this year.

US equity research firm Bernstein believes that Samsung is likely challenging its top rival's leadership in the AI memory chip segment.

It estimates that Samsung's HBM revenue for the July – September quarter of this year came in at $8.7 billion, a jump of 33% from the previous quarter. It's over a billion dollars higher than the $7.6 billion estimated for SK Hynix, which is an 11% increase from the previous quarter.

Samsung has made steady market share gains over the past year and this may have contributed to the $1.1 billion difference in the HBM revenue of both companies in the aforementioned quarter. Samsung has managed to cut SK Hynix's lead in the global HBM market by 20 percentage points in the second quarter of this year.

Both companies are expected to report third-quarter results this week, with Samsung's coming out on Thursday, October 29. Samsung is projecting $81.2 billion in operating profit for the quarter, the vast majority of it being contributed by the semiconductor division.