Selling Samsung Electronics and buying Micron, is the market considering Micron the winner in HBM?

In the era of AI, HBM chips have become the "new favorite", with fierce competition among the three giants, and SK Hynix, with its advantages, stands out.

Since the beginning of this month, there has been a significant increase in foreign investment in the South Korean chip manufacturing giant SK Hynix, with the proportion of foreign holdings reaching a historic high.

According to the latest data from the Korea Exchange, as of last Thursday, the proportion of foreign holdings in SK Hynix reached 54.35%, a figure that has been on the rise since the end of last year, breaking through 54% on February 23 and further increasing.

SK Hynix's rise in the ranking of net foreign purchases is also noteworthy. It ranked third in January, jumped to second in February, and surpassed Hyundai this month to become the most favored stock.

As of March 8, SK Hynix's net purchases reached 490 billion Korean won, with the stock price rising by over 10% this month, reaching a new high of 171,900 Korean won per share.

In contrast, Samsung Electronics has shown a slight decline in performance compared to SK Hynix, with its stock price falling by 0.14% this month and nearly 7% year-to-date.

Foreign investors have significantly sold off Samsung Electronics. In January, Samsung Electronics was the most popular stock among foreign investors, but by February, it had dropped to seventh place, and this month it has become one of the most sold-off stocks by foreign investors.

Analysis indicates that due to Nvidia's strong performance, there is an increased expectation for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, leading many investors to turn to SK Hynix, which has a large market share in the HBM market, with a share of 54% last year. Goldman Sachs analyst Kim Sun-woo pointed out:

SK Hynix's leading position in the HBM market benefits from the trend of AI development. Currently, the gap between SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics in next-generation HBM technology is widening, which may further drive demand for SK Hynix.

Competition in the HBM chip field has reached an unprecedented level.

This year alone, SK Hynix has invested 13 trillion Korean won in advanced packaging technology to enhance its ability to produce high-end chips. This year, it is the sole supplier of HBM3 chips for Nvidia's H100 processor and has signed a priority supply agreement for HBM3E (an important component of the H200) with Nvidia.

Samsung Electronics is also catching up at full speed. The company recently announced the development of a 36GB HBM3E 12H DRAM, the largest content HBM in the industry. With 12-layer stacking technology, its performance and capacity can be increased by more than 50%. Samsung Electronics hopes to start mass production in the first half of this year. Micron has also caught up and announced the start of mass production of HBM3E memory, which will be used in NVIDIA's H200 AI chip, posing a challenge to SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics.