"Global Semiconductor Sales to Reach 1,000 Trillion Won Era"... Samsung Electronics and SK hynix Set to Benefit the Most

[Financial News] The global semiconductor industry is on the verge of surpassing annual sales of 1,000 trillion won for the first time, fueled by a surge in demand for artificial intelligence (AI) inference. A supply shortage centered on High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is spreading across the memory sector, including server Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and solid-state drives (SSD), leading to expectations that the supplier-driven market will persist into next year.
In particular, as inventories of major global module manufacturers have dwindled, tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are signaling large-scale demand for next year. In response, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are ramping up DRAM production. Industry experts believe that if the supply shortage continues, domestic semiconductor companies could see a significant improvement in their performance.
According to industry sources on the 15th, global semiconductor sales are expected to reach an all-time high, driven by strong performance in memory semiconductors. Exports of DRAM and NAND Flash Memory are recovering rapidly. In November this year, DRAM exports increased by 53% and NAND Flash Memory by 50% compared to the same period last year.
As a result, global semiconductor market sales this year are projected to reach approximately 1,180 trillion won, up to 18% higher than last year. The acceleration of AI-based digital transformation and ongoing memory supply shortages are seen as the main drivers of this revenue growth.
Currently, the AI industry is rapidly shifting its focus from 'training' to 'inference.' As the frequency of inference—generating responses in real-world environments—increases, demand for server DRAM capable of handling large volumes of data is surging. With AI memory demand centered on HBM spreading to all types of server memory, a supply shortage across the memory semiconductor sector appears inevitable from next year.
Notably, demand for inference based on Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC), in addition to Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-based computing, is also rising sharply. Major tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have begun adopting their own custom-designed ASICs. Market analysts predict that the demand ratio between GPUs and ASICs will shift from 7:3 this year to 5:5 by 2027.
moving@fnnews.com Lee Dong-hyuk Reporter