“Next year’s high bandwidth memory (HBM) quantity is planned to be finalized with customers within the first half of this year. The mass production of the 6th generation HBM (HBM4) 12-layer products is also expected to proceed as scheduled in the second half.”
Kwak Noh-jung, president of SK hynix, said this during the regular shareholders’ meeting for 2025 held on the 27th at SK hynix headquarters in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. SK hynix has already completely sold this year’s HBM quantities and is currently supplying its flagship HBM3E (5th generation) 12-layer products to major clients including NVIDIA. Samples of the HBM4 (6th generation) 12-layer products have also been delivered to key customers for the first time in the world.
Kwak noted that the growth trend in the HBM market will continue. He stated, “Although uncertainty is high due to a continuing downward forecast for global economic growth, investments by big tech companies to secure a leading position in the artificial intelligence (AI) market are expanding,” adding, “An explosive demand increase for HBM is expected due to the rise in graphics processing units (GPUs) and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).” He also noted that, according to market research data, the HBM market is expected to grow more than 8.8 times compared to this year, and the market for enterprise solid-state drives (SSDs), another type of AI memory, is anticipated to grow 3.5 times.
Additionally, SK hynix predicted that the proportion of HBM in its total DRAM sales will exceed 50% this year. The proportion of HBM sales in the fourth quarter of last year was over 40%. Thanks to HBM, SK hynix achieved record sales of 66.193 trillion won and operating profit of 23.467 trillion won last year.
SK hynix has provided a cautious outlook regarding the recovery of DRAM and NAND flash prices. Recently, Micron, the world’s third-largest memory semiconductor company, notified that an unexpected increase in demand in some memory semiconductor distribution channels would likely lead to a necessary increase in DRAM prices. Not only DRAM but also some NAND flash companies, such as SanDisk, have raised prices.
Lee Sang-rak, vice president in charge of global sales and marketing at SK hynix, said, “It is true that the market situation has improved as some customer inventories have reduced,” but added, “However, we need to examine whether this is due to anticipated tariffs, prompting moves to stockpile inventories earlier, so it is premature to predict the long-term impact.”
SK hynix explained that it will respond flexibly to market conditions related to facility investments this year. Kwak said, “It is true that there are concerns about a slowdown in demand for high-performance semiconductors due to the emergence of low-priced AI models such as DeepSeek from China,” adding, “However, if the release of such models accelerates AI adoption, the demand for AI semiconductors will also increase. The business model for HBM determines facility investment and mass production quantities based on customer orders, so we will work closely with our customers to respond.”
He explained that while focusing the business capabilities on HBM, the development and mass production of next-generation AI memory semiconductors will be pushed forward without any setbacks. Kwak stated, “We are currently focusing on increasing competitiveness by reallocating personnel from the CIS business unit, which handles image sensors, to the AI memory field,” adding, “As the capabilities required for HBM and other AI memory become more diversified than those for existing DRAM and NAND flash, it has become crucial to consolidate these capabilities. We will ensure timely development and mass production not only for HBM but also for next-generation AI memories such as SOCAMM.”