Samsung Reportedly Led Q3 HBM Revenue at $8.7 Billion
Bernstein estimates Samsung's third-quarter HBM revenue at $8.7 billion, $1.1 billion ahead of SK hynix, The Korea Herald reported on Oct. 26. Neither figure is a company result, and both firms report this week.
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Samsung's 12-layer HBM4E chip, as captioned by The Korea Herald. The revenue figures in this story are Bernstein estimates, not a reading off this part.
Image: Samsung Electronics
Source · Press image published by The Korea Herald and credited to Samsung Electronics, used for news reporting.
Samsung Electronics may have taken the third-quarter lead in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) revenue, at an estimated $8.7 billion, The Korea Herald reported on Oct. 26, citing the research firm Bernstein.
Third-quarter 2026 HBM revenue estimates, billion dollars
Illustration (AI-generated)
Bernstein put Samsung's July-to-September HBM revenue 33 percent above the previous quarter. It put SK hynix at $7.6 billion, up 11 percent, which leaves an estimated gap of $1.1 billion. The figures are a regression on export data from the Korean regions where the two companies manufacture, not a line either company has reported. SK hynix is scheduled to report on Wednesday, Oct. 28, and Samsung on Thursday, Oct. 29.
That split matters because HBM is the stacked memory sold into AI accelerators. The Herald said both firms are competing to supply NVIDIA's coming Vera Rubin platform. Counterpoint Research, cited in the same piece, said the previous generation, HBM3E, still accounted for most global HBM revenue in the second quarter, so the earnings calls are the test of whether newer HBM4 shipments are what moved the money.
What the September export tape shows
Bernstein found that HBM exports in September rose 45 percent from August and 131 percent from a year earlier. It also used export value per unit of weight as a rough mix indicator. Samsung's September reading was more than double its prior level and about four times the SK hynix reading, which the Herald said is consistent with a richer mix of higher-priced parts. The paper said the indicator does not, by itself, establish a selling price or a technology lead.
How the share gap narrowed before this estimate
Counterpoint's shares, as the Herald relayed them, put SK hynix at 64 percent of global HBM revenue in the second quarter of 2025 and Samsung at 15 percent. A year later those shares were 50 percent and 33 percent, and the gap had narrowed from 49 percentage points to 17. The Herald also wrote that Samsung reduced SK hynix's lead by 20 percentage points in the second quarter of 2026, after a year in which the revenue-share gap was largely unchanged. Samsung began commercial shipments of HBM4 in February. SK hynix began large-scale HBM4 shipments in the second quarter. Samsung is restarting Pyeongtaek capacity to chase that share, as Voltgrid reported.
What is not confirmed yet
Samsung has already guided to operating profit of 107.4 trillion won ($81.2 billion). A FnGuide analyst poll expects SK hynix operating profit of about 77 trillion won. Hana Securities estimated on Monday that SK hynix's average DRAM selling price rose 21 percent from the prior quarter. None of those figures is the HBM revenue the two companies have yet to publish. The $8.7 billion and $7.6 billion estimates can move when the results arrive. A separate Voltgrid report described NVIDIA's plan for its HBM suppliers' base dies, which this revenue estimate does not confirm.
