SEOUL, Jan 2 (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics customers have praised the differentiated competitiveness of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, or HBM4, saying "Samsung is back", co-CEO and chip chief Jun Young-hyun said in a New Year address. In October, Samsung said it was in "close discussion" to supply its HBM4 to U.S. artificial intelligence leader Nvidia, as the South Korean chipmaker scrambles to catch rivals including compatriot SK Hynix in AI chips. SK Hynix commanded 53% of the HBM market in the third quarter of 2025, followed by Samsung at 35% and Micron at 11%, showed data from Counterpoint Research. Investors are looking for signs of Samsung narrowing the gap with its fourth-generation chips. Samsung said in its third-quarter earnings conference call that it is shipping HBM4 samples to key clients and that it will focus on the mass production of HBM4 products in 2026, betting on rising demand. Shares of Samsung Electronics were up 1.9% in morning trade, versus the benchmark KOSPI's 0.5% rise. (Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Christopher Cushing)
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