A SK Hynix flag (R) and a South Korean national flag (L) flutter outside the company's Bundang office in Seongnam on Jan. 26, 2024. SK Hynix beat rival Samsung Electronics in operating profit for the first time in 2025, as it retained its lead in high-bandwidth memory used in artificial intelligence chips. SK Hynix posted a record operating profit of 47.2 trillion won for the full year, surpassing Samsung's 43.6 trillion won. SK Hynix focuses almost entirely on memory chips, while Samsung operates across multiple businesses, including consumer electronics and contract chip manufacturing. "⁠⁠The HBM4 race is really between SK Hynix and Samsung as we think [the] two companies are more competitive than Micron," said Wang.