Korea's HBM Exports Surge Another 51% MoM as AI Memory Boom Accelerates
Claire Weston
South Korea's first-20-day June data shows HBM exports up 51% month-on-month and more than tripled year-on-year, signaling the memory-chip cycle has moved past restocking into a price-led, supply-starved mid-boom phase that the industry expects to last through 2027.
How hot is each product line right now?
HBM is the hottest: $7.34 billion in exports, +209% YoY, +51% MoM, unit price still up 119% YoY — every chip produced finds a buyer instantly.
SSD exports hit $2.78 billion (+405% YoY); NAND reached $1.22 billion (+335% YoY). This means → the boom is spreading from DRAM into flash storage across the board.
DRAM (with modules) exported $11.86 billion (+342% YoY), yet grew only +3% MoM; bare DRAM actually fell -1% MoM. In plain terms = volume has peaked — revenue now rides entirely on soaring unit prices.
Volume flat, prices still surging — what does that tell us?
Bare DRAM unit price is up +576% YoY, while shipment volume dipped -1% MoM — no extra units shipped, yet revenue jumped +397% purely on pricing power.
NAND unit price surged +546% YoY, far outpacing its revenue growth. This means → suppliers hold absolute pricing power and the supply-demand gap is still widening.
This reflects what the industry calls the "golden screw" phenomenon: memory chips are shifting from commodity to scarce strategic resource. In a boom cycle, prices accelerating while volume peaks is the signature of the hottest mid-to-late stage — not the end.
Where is the capacity going — and why does DRAM look weakest?
HBM leads all categories at +51% MoM, followed by NAND at +28% and SSD at +25%; bare DRAM sits at -1%.
DRAM is not weakening. This means → limited wafer capacity is being redirected to higher-margin HBM and enterprise products — an internal "crowding out" within each maker's own product lines.
In plain terms = the boom is so intense that chipmakers must choose which orders to fill first — AI-linked, high-price contracts win; conventional DRAM waits.
How is this cycle different from past memory booms?
Memory has always been a hard-cyclical industry, driven by consumer-electronics inventory swings. But this time HBM is leading (+209% in value, +51% MoM), pointing to structural AI-compute expansion as the driver, not a traditional restocking wave.
Nvidia has urged Korean suppliers to accelerate HBM4 deliveries; SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics together control over 80% of the HBM4 market, providing clear, sustained demand pull.
Samsung has explicitly warned that new wafer fabs need two to three years to ramp, and supply-demand will tighten further through 2027. This reflects a telling signal — producers endorsing the boom's longevity is something that rarely happens at a cycle peak.
Who benefits most — and how far can this run?
The picture is clear: memory chips are in a mid-boom phase driven by AI, anchored on pricing power, and bottlenecked by supply — volume has peaked, prices keep surging, and capacity tilts toward HBM.
The most direct beneficiaries are SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, which hold over 80% of HBM market share; Micron and SanDisk, competing for similar orders, also stand to gain.
This means → the boom is not just at a high level — it likely still has room to run, with supply tightness expected to persist through 2027. This cycle is far from topping out.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.