Just four months after mass production began, Samsung's HBM4 revenue has already exceeded $1 billion.

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The commercialization of Samsung Electronics' sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory HBM4 is advancing at an astonishing pace.

According to Yonhap News on Tuesday, since the global first mass production and shipment of Samsung HBM4 in February this year, it has achieved sales of over $1 billion in just about four months, becoming one of the fastest commercialization milestones in the AI memory chip market to date.

Industry sources report that the recent sharp surge in demand for HBM4 is the core driving force behind this achievement. If counted until the end of June, cumulative sales of Samsung HBM4 are expected to further exceed $1.2 billion (approximately 1.85 trillion KRW). Meanwhile, Samsung's market share in the overall HBM market is also significantly expanding, as the supply of HBM4 increases rapidly.

The significance of this progress for the market goes beyond revenue figures themselves. Samsung has previously stated clearly that its existing HBM4 capacity is fully booked and sold out by customers. In the second half of the year, it will achieve a substantial expansion of supply, and expects that from the third quarter onwards, HBM4 sales will exceed half of its total HBM product sales. This means Samsung's competitive position in the AI memory field is accelerating its transformation.

Global debut mass production, $1 billion record in four months

On February 12th, Samsung Electronics began mass production and shipment of HBM4 at its Cheonan campus in Chungnam, Korea, about a week ahead of schedule, becoming the world's first company to commercialize and ship HBM4. HBM4 is the latest generation of high-bandwidth memory technology standard that has entered mass production, and is a standard component for Nvidia (NVDA) Vera Rubin platform and AMD MI450.

According to industry sources cited by Yonhap News, after about four months of mass production and shipment, Samsung HBM4 sales have surpassed $1 billion (about 1.54 trillion KRW). If the cutoff is set at the end of June, this figure is expected to exceed $1.2 billion.

This speed reflects the strong boost in demand for high-end memory chips from AI infrastructure construction. Samsung management previously stated in the Q1 earnings call that the company's current demand satisfaction rate is at a historic low, and the available supply is far from meeting customer needs.

Capacity sold out, supply to expand greatly in second half of the year

Tight supply and demand are pushing Samsung to accelerate capacity expansion. According to TradingKey, Samsung management stated at the Q1 earnings meeting that the currently prepared HBM4 capacity has been fully booked and sold out, and there will be substantive growth in supply in the second half of the year.

Samsung expects that from the third quarter of this year, HBM4 sales will exceed 50% of its total HBM product sales, and product structure will accelerate to the new generation products. Meanwhile, Samsung has started providing samples of the more advanced HBM4e product to customers since the second quarter, preparing for the next round of technological iteration.

On the supply agreement front, Samsung stated that it is actively advancing multi-year supply contracts, which will have greater binding force compared to previous short-term contracts, to meet the urgent mid- and long-term supply demands of hyperscalers.

Profit inversion but Samsung sticks to HBM strategy

Despite the strong momentum of HBM4 commercialization, Samsung management also admitted the current rare phenomenon of "profit inversion"—the margin of traditional DRAM is currently higher than HBM products.

Samsung explained that this originates from the difference in pricing mechanisms between the two product types: HBM products lock in annual prices in advance, while traditional DRAM is priced through quarterly negotiations. Against the backdrop of traditional DRAM prices rising sharply quarter by quarter, a temporary margin inversion has appeared.

However, Samsung management made it clear that it will not shift heavily to traditional DRAM for short-term gains, reasoning that such a move "could restrict the construction of AI infrastructure itself." Management forecasts that with the popularization of inference services and AI agents, the margin gap between the two products will significantly narrow by 2027.

Memory supply-demand gap to further expand in 2027

Looking at a longer cycle, Samsung holds an optimistic outlook for the memory market. According to TradingKey, Samsung management stated that judging by currently booked demand alone, the supply-demand gap in 2027 will be even bigger than this year.

Samsung's Q1 financial report confirms this view: quarterly revenue hit a record 133.9 trillion KRW, operating profit soared 756% year-over-year to 57.23 trillion KRW, marking the strongest single-quarter performance in company history.

Beyond HBM, Samsung's other product lines are also planning for AI infrastructure's spillover effects. Samsung points out that data center demand is extending from HBM to NAND—large language models' demand for storage capacity continues to grow, benefiting the relatively low-cost NAND. Samsung says it is ready and plans to seize the leading position in the high-performance PCIe Gen 6 SSD early market in the second half of the year.

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