According to reports from Yonhap News, ZDnet and others, Samsung Electronics began the world’s first mass production of HBM4 on February 12 this year at its Cheonan campus in Chungnam, South Korea. In about four months, sales have already exceeded US$1 billion, making Samsung the first manufacturer to reach this milestone. As of the end of June, cumulative sales are estimated to surpass US$1.2 billion. At its Q1 earnings call, Samsung management stated that all existing HBM4 production capacity has been booked, and supply will see substantial growth in the second half of the year. Starting from Q3, HBM4 sales are expected to account for more than 50% of total HBM product sales. According to industry estimates, Samsung’s annual HBM sales could exceed US$10 billion, more than triple the figure from the previous year. In addition, Samsung has begun delivering the industry’s first 12-layer 48GB HBM4E samples to key customers and will schedule mass production based on customer timelines.
The core driver behind the rapid expansion of HBM demand is ASIC. In recent months, Samsung has continuously received supply cooperation requests from hyperscale data center clients using ASIC-based solutions. KB Securities analyst Kim Dong-won noted that Samsung has established a diversified customer portfolio including Broadcom, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta. Jensen Huang previously stated that SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron have all passed NVIDIA’s HBM4 certification, and the three manufacturers will continue to compete for market share. Counterpoint Research predicts that AI server computing ASIC demand for HBM will reach 35 times the 2024 level by 2028, with average HBM capacity growing nearly fivefold over the same period. TrendForce estimates that global HBM bit consumption in 2026 will surge 92% year-over-year to 28.5 billion Gb.