The company recently revealed that it expects HBM sales to account for “a double-digit percentage of its DRAM chip sales” this year. If this news comes true, it will mean a significant increase in sales of high-bandwidth, high-priced memory.
As first reported by Reuters, SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung said he expects HBM sales to account for a double-digit percentage of its DRAM chip sales in 2024. This forecast is in line with TrendForce’s estimate that industry-wide, HBM will account for 20.1% of DRAM revenue by 2024, more than double HBM’s 8.4% revenue share in 2023.
While SK Hynix does not regularly break down its DRAM revenue by memory type, some inferences suggest that they are on track to achieve billions of dollars in HBM revenue in 2024, which is likely to have already crossed the $1 billion mark. 2023. According to data from Statista and TrendForce, SK Hynix’s DRAM revenue last year was US$15.941 billion. Therefore, SK hynix only needs 12.5% of its revenue in 2024 to come from HBM (assuming overall revenue is flat or positive), and HBM sales can exceed US$2 billion. Even so, this is a low estimate.
Overall, SK Hynix currently occupies about 50% of the HBM market, and has basically divided the market with Samsung in the past few years. Given this share, and the fact that DRAM industry revenue is expected to increase to $84.15 billion in 2024, if TrendForce’s forecast is accurate, SK Hynix’s HBM revenue in 2024 will be as high as $8.45 billion.
Notably, all three major DRAM manufacturers are preparing to increase their HBM production capacity this year as demand for AI servers reaches record levels. Most notable here is the near-absence of Micron Technology, which was the first supplier to start shipping HBM3E memory to NVIDIA earlier this year. Therefore, SK Hynix’s nearly majority share of the HBM market may be shaken this year, although as the pie continues to grow, they have no reason to complain. Ultimately, if HBM sales reach the projected $16.9 billion, all memory manufacturers will enjoy significant growth in HBM revenue in the coming months.
Source: Reuters, TrendForce