In a stunning reversal that signals just how dramatically AI has reshuffled the semiconductor industry, SK Hynix just posted higher annual operating profit than Samsung Electronics for the first time in history. The memory chipmaker recorded 47.2 trillion won ($32.3 billion) in operating profit for 2025, edging past Samsung's 43.6 trillion won - a victory powered almost entirely by SK Hynix's stranglehold on high-bandwidth memory chips that fuel AI data centers. What was once a David-versus-Goliath story has become a full-blown competitive crisis for Samsung, which has dominated Korean tech for decades.
SK Hynix just did something that seemed unthinkable even two years ago - it out-earned Samsung Electronics for an entire year. The final tally for 2025 shows SK Hynix posting 47.2 trillion won in operating profit, narrowly surpassing Samsung's 43.6 trillion won, according to earnings releases this week. It's the first time in history that the smaller chipmaker has beaten its larger rival on an annual basis, and the victory is almost entirely thanks to one product category: high-bandwidth memory chips that power AI.
The reversal is striking when you consider the backstory. SK Hynix was acquired by SK Telecom for about $3 billion back in 2012, a modest deal that barely registered outside Korea. Samsung, by contrast, has been a tech titan for decades, with sprawling businesses spanning consumer electronics, contract chip manufacturing, and memory production. Even Samsung's memory division alone generated about 24.9 trillion won in operating profit last year - roughly half what the entire SK Hynix operation delivered.
What changed? AI infrastructure happened, and SK Hynix was ready. The company positioned itself early as the go-to supplier for high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, the specialized chips that sit alongside AI processors in data centers. , the dominant force in AI hardware, relies heavily on SK Hynix for the memory that feeds its GPUs. "SK Hynix is clearly an outstanding 'AI Winner' in Asia," MS Hwang, research director at , told reporters. "Its lead in quality and supply of HBMs and other chips used in AI servers has been crucial in the current phase of the AI infrastructure boom."
