Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK Hynix (000660.KS) have seen their memory semiconductor inventories fall below 10 days, and securities industry analysis suggests that actually sellable supply could be entirely exhausted next year. With artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure investment exploding, the expansion of next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) production is cannibalizing general-purpose DRAM capacity, pushing the entire memory market into an unprecedented supply shortage.<\/p>\n
KB Securities stated in a report on the 7th: “As AI infrastructure investment surges, the memory semiconductor market will enter an unprecedented supply shortage phase,” adding, “In particular, as HBM4 production expansion encroaches on general-purpose DRAM capacity, next year’s DRAM and NAND bit demand will exceed supply by more than 10 percentage points.”<\/p>\n
Hyperscaler Investment Surge \u2014 Memory Share Quadruples in Two Years<\/p>\n
Behind the supply shortage lies aggressive AI infrastructure investment by global hyperscale cloud companies. Kim Dong-won, head of research at KB Securities, reported that hyperscalers’ AI infrastructure investment for next year is being sharply revised upward to $1.3 trillion (approximately 1,749.6 trillion won), a 60% increase year-over-year.<\/p>\n
“AI has emerged as a direct new revenue source through cloud AI services, token-based billing, agentic AI, and model hosting, and the AI revenue model has entered a stage of genuine concretization,” he explained.<\/p>\n
Memory semiconductors’ share of AI infrastructure investment is also rising steeply. According to KB Securities, this share is projected to expand roughly fourfold in two years \u2014 from 14% last year to 40% this year and 57% next year. Market research firm TrendForce projects the share will reach 68% next year.<\/p>\n
YearKB Securities ForecastTrendForce Forecast202514%\u2014202640%\u2014202757%68%<\/p>\n
Note: Memory semiconductors’ share of AI infrastructure investment. TrendForce’s historical figures were not included in the report.<\/p>\n
HBM4 Cannibalizes General-Purpose DRAM \u2014 Unprecedented Shortage<\/p>\n
The key factor fueling the supply shortage is HBM4 production expansion. Kim explained that a single HBM4 wafer occupies production capacity equivalent to three general-purpose DRAM wafers. The more HBM4 production increases, the fewer wafer inputs can be allocated to general-purpose DRAM, constraining supply-side bit growth.<\/p>\n
“With limited wafer inputs, this will constrain supply-side bit growth and act as a factor in next year’s unprecedented supply shortage,” he said.<\/p>\n
On the demand side, this is not solely an HBM issue. AI servers are simultaneously absorbing demand for server DDR5 and enterprise solid-state drives (eSSD) in addition to HBM, increasing supply pressure across the memory segment. Next year’s bit-based demand growth for DRAM and NAND is expected to outpace supply growth by more than 10 percentage points.<\/p>\n
“As of the third quarter, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix memory inventories have fallen below 10 days. This goes beyond a simple demand recovery \u2014 there is a high likelihood that supply itself will become absolutely insufficient,” Kim said. “Next year, the possibility of actual sellable memory supply exhaustion could become a reality.”<\/p>\n
‘Extremely Undervalued’ Despite 38% Stock Decline<\/p>\n
Both companies’ stock prices have fallen 38% from their peaks over the past three months. Based on next year’s estimated earnings, their price-to-earnings ratios (PER) remain at around 3x. However, Kim noted that record-breaking earnings over the next three years and continued large-scale shareholder return policies are expected, stating, “A powerful re-rating from extreme undervaluation is anticipated.”<\/p>\n
KB Securities named Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as its top picks in the semiconductor sector, judging that the memory market’s structural supply shortage will translate into earnings improvement and resolve the current undervaluation.<\/p>\n
This outlook suggests that the global AI infrastructure investment cycle has established itself as a long-term structural trend rather than a short-term theme. As hyperscalers concretize their AI revenue models and continue expanding investment, memory semiconductors’ share of AI infrastructure is growing rapidly \u2014 an analysis indicating that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix stand to benefit with even greater intensity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK Hynix (000660.KS) have seen their memory semiconductor inventories fall below 10 days, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1366,644,4287,18544,466,15606,2366,276,241,275,23385],"class_list":["post-145219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sk-hynix","tag-ai-infrastructure","tag-dram","tag-hbm4","tag-hyperscalers","tag-kb-securities","tag-kim-dong-won","tag-nand","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk","tag-sk-hynix","tag-trendforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145219","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=145219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}