![\"Yonhap](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/news-p.v1.20260831.380fde8f56c74546b1436e61f914a4a7_P1.png\"\/ "\\"HBM4")
Yonhap News<\/p>\nYonhap News<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics (005930) and SK hynix (000660) have diverged in short-term share performance, and brokerages are now setting different expectations for the two chipmakers based on shifting competitiveness in high-bandwidth memory. Optimism about the memory cycle remains firm, but Samsung’s expanding HBM4 output and improving yields are drawing attention, prompting a reassessment of the supplier premium long concentrated on SK hynix.<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics rose 1.18% over the past month, outpacing the KOSPI’s 0.49% gain, while SK hynix fell 8.98%, according to the Korea Exchange on the 31st. Foreign investors, who have kept selling Korean equities, unloaded 5.9805 trillion won worth of SK hynix shares over the same period, compared with net selling of just 785.2 billion won in Samsung Electronics. That runs counter to longer-term performance. Over the past six months, SK hynix returned 50.41% against Samsung’s 17.89%, and over one year, 535.77% against 264.02%.<\/p>\n
The outlook for the chip industry itself remains bright. Bank of America said global DRAM revenue growth could exceed 80% in 2027 if expanding artificial intelligence demand continues alongside limited supply increases. The investment bank also noted that memory supply is likely to stay tight, as both companies are directing new capacity toward HBM while remaining conservative about adding commodity DRAM and NAND capacity.<\/p>\n
![\"null](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/news-g.v1.20260831.b93309bbb759471f813d3f3f8f8bf5bb_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"HBM4")
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Market attention has instead shifted to which company will capture more of the growing HBM market. About a month ago, UBS projected SK hynix would hold a 48% share of HBM bit shipments this year, but forecast Samsung Electronics would edge ahead next year at 41% versus SK hynix’s 39%.<\/p>\n
Korean brokerages have begun reflecting that in their estimates. LS Securities (078020) raised its target price for Samsung Electronics by 12.5% to 450,000 won from 400,000 won on the same day, while cutting SK hynix by 27.3% to 2.4 million won from 3.3 million won. Samsung’s HBM4 share of shipments is estimated to rise to about 35% in the second quarter from about 5% in the first, with its blended HBM yield improving more than 5 percentage points from the previous quarter. The brokerage said the valuation discount tied to Samsung’s earlier competitive disadvantage in HBM would narrow as a result.<\/p>\n
For SK hynix, by contrast, the brokerage flagged the risk that customers may diversify their supply base as Samsung expands HBM4 shipments. LS Securities lowered its estimate for SK hynix’s HBM operating margin next year to about 60% from about 80%, cutting its earnings forecast as well. It also noted that HBM accounts for more than twice as large a share of SK hynix’s intrinsic value as it does for Samsung’s under the brokerage’s own calculations, leaving the company’s valuation relatively more sensitive to changes in HBM profitability. That structure has worked as pressure to trim part of the premium that had underpinned SK hynix’s high profitability.<\/p>\n
Analysts said the key to future share performance lies less in the absolute size of demand than in how well each company preserves its technological edge in next-generation products and its share within major customers. “It does not mean growth in the HBM market is slowing,” said Jung Woo-sung, an analyst at LS Securities, referring to the target price cut for SK hynix. “It is a process of the competitive structure among suppliers normalizing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yonhap News Samsung Electronics (005930) and SK hynix (000660) have diverged in short-term share performance, and brokerages are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1925,32353,4287,8230,276,241,275,892],"class_list":["post-137875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sk-hynix","tag-dram-market","tag-hbm-market-share","tag-hbm4","tag-ls-securities","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk","tag-sk-hynix","tag-target-price"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}