Comparison of major companies’ memory sales in Q4 2025. (Photo courtesy of Counterpoint Research)
Samsung Electronics recorded its largest operating profit ever in the fourth quarter of last year and subsequently reclaimed the No. 1 market share position in the global DRAM market. This marks one year since SK Hynix took the top position in Q4 2024.
According to market research firm Counterpoint Research on Jan. 8, Samsung Electronics’ memory semiconductor sales in the fourth quarter of last year increased 34% compared to the previous quarter, recording $25.9 billion.
Based on this estimate, approximately 40% of total sales of 93 trillion won (approximately $64.5 billion) came from memory semiconductors. DRAM sales were calculated at $19.2 billion, while NAND flash sales reached $6.7 billion.
During the same period, SK Hynix’s total memory sales were $22.4 billion, with DRAM at $17.1 billion and NAND at $5.3 billion.
This enables Samsung Electronics to reclaim the No. 1 DRAM market share position from SK Hynix after one year. Samsung Electronics had maintained the top position in the DRAM market for approximately 30 years until Q4 2024, before losing the DRAM leadership position to SK Hynix for the first time in Q1 2025.
Choi Jeong-gu, Principal Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research, analyzed, “Samsung is back. In general-purpose DRAM, they are responding well with a server-focused approach aligned with customer demand trends, and the introduction of advanced 1c process nodes and 4-nanometer logic processes in HBM4 (6th generation) is delivering good performance in terms of speed and heat generation that customers require.”
Meanwhile, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), led by its artificial intelligence (AI) model ‘Gemini,’ surpassed Apple to become the second-largest company by market capitalization in the United States.
On Jan. 7 (local time), Alphabet’s stock price closed at $321.98 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 2.4% from the previous day. In contrast, Apple’s stock price finished trading at $260.33, down 0.77%. Based on closing prices that day, Alphabet’s market capitalization reached $3.89 trillion, ranking second after first-place NVIDIA ($4.6 trillion). Apple ($3.85 trillion) was pushed to third place.
As Apple, an ‘AI latecomer,’ falls behind Google, the differences in AI capabilities among Big Tech companies are being directly reflected in stock prices and corporate valuations. This marks the first time Alphabet has surpassed Apple since January 2019. Alphabet reaching second place in U.S. market capitalization represents the first time in approximately eight years since 2018.
Google’s greatest strength lies in being an ‘AI full-stack’ company. Google is the only company that has secured the entire AI ecosystem, from AI cloud and AI semiconductors (Tensor Processing Units・TPU) and hardware like Pixel phones, to software including the Android mobile operating system, Chrome browser, and Google search engine. Additionally, Google is expanding its position as a rival to NVIDIA by maintaining its own AI chip ecosystem that NVIDIA has monopolized. Through self-developed chips, Google is dramatically reducing its dependence on NVIDIA while advancing its Gemini model at lower costs.
In contrast, Apple continues to struggle, having failed to introduce any significant innovative AI services even three years after the emergence of ChatGPT in late 2022. Apple had initially planned to launch a next-generation Siri AI assistant, but the schedule has been delayed.
