[Edaily Reporter SOYEON KIM ] SamsungElectronics has solidified its position as the leader in the global DRAM market. While the company significantly increased its shipments in the second quarter and boosted its market share, the market share of second-place SK hynix declined, widening the gap between the two companies. Micron closely pursued SK hynix by expanding its shipments.

According to market research firm TrendForce on the 7th, global DRAM market revenue in the second quarter of this year reached $154.73 billion (approximately 208 trillion won), a 59.5% increase from the previous quarter. This was driven by growing demand for memory—including High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM)—due to the expansion of Large Language Model (LLM) training and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) inference.

Amid this trend, SamsungElectronics’ growth was particularly notable. SamsungElectronics posted second-quarter DRAM revenue of $60.98 billion (approximately 82 trillion won). This represents a 63.4% increase from the previous quarter, marking the largest growth in shipment volume among the top three memory manufacturers.

Its market share also expanded. SamsungElectronics’ second-quarter DRAM market share stood at 39.4%, up 0.9 percentage points from 38.5% in the first quarter. By securing a share nearing 40% of the total market, the company further solidified its leading position in the DRAM market. Analysts attribute this growth to SamsungElectronics’ efforts to expand shipments, including the early mass production of HBM4.

In contrast, SK hynix saw its market share decline despite an increase in second-quarter revenue. SK hynix’s second-quarter revenue totaled $38.59 billion (approximately 52 trillion won), a 37.9% increase from the previous quarter.

However, its market share fell by 3.9 percentage points, from 28.8% to 24.9%. TrendForce cited the high proportion of HBM shipments and the limited rise in average selling prices (ASPs) as the main factors behind this decline.

The market share gap between SamsungElectronics and SK hynix widened from 9.7 percentage points in the first quarter to 14.5 percentage points in the second quarter. SamsungElectronics not only retained its top spot but also significantly widened the gap with the second-place competitor.

Micron’s pursuit also intensified. Micron posted second-quarter revenue of $36 billion (approximately 48 trillion won), marking a 65.5% increase from the previous quarter. Its market share also rose from 22.4% to 23.3%, narrowing the gap with SK hynix to 1.6 percentage points.

However, growth in global DRAM market shipments is expected to remain limited for the time being. With memory manufacturers’ inventories remaining at low levels, the increase in second-quarter shipments was modest, and supply expansion is expected to remain constrained in the third quarter as well.

The pace of price increases is also expected to slow. TrendForce forecasts that DRAM prices in the third quarter will rise by 13–18% compared to the previous quarter. This is because some demand is shifting from high-capacity to low-capacity products, and PC and smartphone manufacturers are finding it difficult to absorb further price hikes.

TrendForce expects the “Big Three” memory manufacturers—SamsungElectronics, SK hynix, and Micron—to accelerate their transition to leading-edge processes and expand shipments in 2026–2027. However, the firm forecasts that the increase in production capacity resulting from this transition will be limited.

Conversely, Taiwanese companies such as Nanya, Winbond, and PSMC are expected to continue their growth by focusing on products using mature processes, thereby absorbing demand that the “Big Three” memory manufacturers find relatively difficult to meet.