SK Hynix to Secure Over 60% Market Share for 5th Generation HBM Next Year - Meritz Securities

[Financial News] SK Hynix is expected to secure a market share of over 60% for 8-layer High Bandwidth Memory (HBM3E) and over 75% for 12-layer among major customers by 2026.
According to Meritz Securities on the 27th, researcher Kim Sun-woo stated in a report, "Leading HBM company SK Hynix is estimated to have secured visibility for 2026 volume for NVIDIA during the 'Computex 2025', Asia's largest IT exhibition," adding, "It is expected to have secured priority supply rights for over 50% of the volume compared to this year."
He explained, "Not only HBM 3E but also HBM4 is estimated to have secured priority supply rights as the first supplier, with price growth in the single digits."
Researcher Kim further analyzed, "The cyclical nature of the past DRAM industry, characterized by low business visibility, post-production price determination structure, high fixed costs, market share competition, and time lag between investment and production, has been addressed by SK Hynix securing early visibility for 2026 sales for major customers like NVIDIA, although financial flexibility for the group and SK Hynix remains limited."
He reported, "They are responding with conversion investments such as Cheongju M15X and M8, while maintaining caution over cash outflows like the Yongin cluster. Such selective investments are positive factors for mid-to-long-term industry improvement." Researcher Kim added, "The improvement in operating profit centered on DRAM is expected to continue until 2026, following a trend similar to the DRAM industry improvement from 2012 to 2014."

kjh0109@fnnews.com Kwon Jun-ho Reporter