A close-up of the Samsung logo at a research building in Silicon Valley, Mountain View, California, October 28, 2018.
Smith Collection/Gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images
Samsung Electronics shares rose more than 15% on Wednesday, pushing the semiconductor giant’s market capitalization above $1 trillion as investors continued to pile into artificial intelligence stocks.
Samsung became the second Asian company to cross the $1 trillion mark after TSMC. The company surpassed the $1 trillion market cap threshold for the first time on February 26, according to FactSet data.
The company’s stock hit a new all-time high and is on track for its biggest single-day gain, according to FactSet data.
The price rose after Samsung Electronics posted a record high in its first quarter results last week. Operating profit soared more than eight times to 57.2 trillion won, and sales reached a record high of 133.9 trillion won.
Samsung’s first quarter operating profit also exceeded its full-year profit of 43.6 trillion won in 2025.
The rise also followed a Bloomberg report that Apple is in exploratory talks with Samsung and Intel to produce chips for Apple devices in the United States, potentially diversifying beyond longtime supplier TSMC.
Shares of South Korean semiconductor giant SK Hynix also rose more than 10%, pushing the benchmark index Kospi up more than 5%, topping 7,000 for the first time.
Sales of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips are boosting Samsung’s profitability, but the company continues to face stiff competition after losing an early lead in the HBM market to rival SK Hynix.
Samsung has been working to close the gap with SK Hynix in the rapidly growing AI memory field. In February, the company announced that it had begun mass production of the world’s first HBM4 chip and had begun deliveries to undisclosed customers.
HBM4 represents the latest generation of 6th generation high-bandwidth memory technology. The chip is expected to play a key role in Nvidia’s upcoming Vera Rubin AI architecture, aimed at powering advanced AI workloads in data centers.
Analysts said Samsung Electronics’ surge was driven by a surge in demand for AI-related memory, tighter supply conditions and increased competitiveness in high-bandwidth memory chips.
“There is a huge shortage of DRAM and NAND memory chips because of the skyrocketing demand for AI. AI’s high bandwidth and storage demands are making memory extremely hungry,” said Yu Jing Jie, technology equity analyst at Morningstar.
DRAM chips are fast, volatile memory chips that temporarily store data while the processor is actively using it, while NAND chips are slower, non-volatile storage chips that retain data even when the device is powered off.
While memory makers are scrambling to ramp up production, Yu also noted that supply is likely to remain constrained in the short term because it typically takes two to three years for new semiconductor production capacity to come online. This raises expectations for earnings growth and improved margins over the next one to two years.
Despite the expected increase in new factories across the industry over the next few years, Rolf Balck, head of semiconductors and infrastructure at Futuram Group, said current high memory prices and strong earnings at Samsung and its peers are likely to continue supporting it for some time.
Bulk added that customer feedback on Samsung’s latest HBM4 product has been positive, helping it close the technology gap with SK Hynix.
SK Hynix still leads the HBM market with an estimated 55% share, followed by Samsung at about 25%, but Bulk said investors are not too concerned about the difference as traditional DRAM profitability has recently outpaced HBM’s margins.
—CNBC’s Dylan Butts contributed to this report.
