2 weeks Ago By Adnan Farooqui
NVIDIA is one of the world's biggest buyers of high-bandwidth memory. These chips are used in its AI accelerators that are a hot commodity these days. Whichever HBM provider wins that order from NVIDIA stands to make billions, and billions SK Hynix has made.
The company has reported its Q1 2025 earnings today with an operating profit of $5.2 billion, a massive 157.8% jump over the same period last year.
That's about a billion or so higher than Samsung's projected operating profit for the period. SK Hynix is reaping the rewards of its HBM3E excellenceThese were SK Hynix's second highest quarterly earnings in its history and primarily fueled by its stellar HBM sales. Its revenue rose 41.
9% over Q1 2024 despite the first quarter typically being slow for memory sales.SK Hynix has fully capitalized on NVIDIA's insatiable appetite for 12-layer HBM3E memory chips. Samsung does offer similar products but its HBM3E modules have yet to clear NVIDIA's quality tests.
It's been trying hard and has even made some changes, but it seems that the chips remain unable to meet NVIDIA's stringent standards. This has enabled SK Hynix to run away with the order book and unless Samsung turns things around, it may continue to capitalize on Samsung's misfortune. SK Hynix is already projecting its HBM shipments to double this year with the cutting-edge 12-lawyer chips accounting for more than half of all HBM3E sales in Q2 2025.
Samsung's best bet to turn things around now lies with the next-generation HBM4 modules. The company has increased focus on ensuring the mistakes that cost it dearly with HBM3E aren't repeated. Meanwhile, SK Hynix has already delivered samples of its HBM4 modules to clients, including NVIDIA, as it seeks to build upon this momentum.
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