Samsung Electronics reclaimed the No. 1 spot in the global DRAM market in the fourth quarter of last year, winning back the "DRAM throne" from SK hynix after one year.
According to market research firm Omdia on the 22nd, total revenue in the global DRAM market in the fourth quarter of last year was tallied at $52.407 billion (about 75.9 trillion won), up about $12 billion from the previous quarter.
Samsung Electronics' DRAM revenue came to $19.156 billion (about 27.7 trillion won), up 40.6% from the previous quarter. Its market share rose 2.9 percentage points to 36.6%, taking first place.
During the same period, SK hynix's DRAM revenue increased 25.2% to $17.226 billion (about 24.9 trillion won), but its share fell from 34.1% to 32.9%, slipping to second place.
Samsung Electronics' return to No. 1 in the global DRAM market came after one year since the fourth quarter of 2024 (38.1%). Earlier, in the first quarter of last year, Samsung Electronics ceded the top spot for the first time to SK hynix, which quickly increased revenue and market share on the back of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). It was the first ranking change in 33 years since Samsung Electronics took the global No. 1 position in the DRAM market in 1992.
However, in the fourth quarter, it regained the DRAM lead by sharply increasing sales of HBM3E (5th generation) and commodity DRAM, which benefited from rising prices, leveraging the industry's largest production capacity.
Samsung Electronics said on a conference call for last month's earnings release, "We expanded HBM sales in the fourth quarter and responded to demand with high-value products such as high-capacity DDR5 and low-power, high-performance DRAM (LPDDR5X)," adding, "The average selling price (ASP) of DRAM recorded an increase of around 40% from the previous quarter due to overall market price gains and sales focused on high-value server products."
During the same period, the share of U.S. Micron fell from 25.8% to 22.9%, while the share of China's CXMT edged up from 3.7% to 4.7%.
Samsung Electronics is expected to accelerate maintaining its No. 1 position in DRAM by expanding commodity DRAM sales while raising its profile in the market with a focus on HBM4.