KB Securities Warns That Samsung and SK Hynix Memory Inventories Are Below 10 Days

Huo Xing Finance reports that Korean brokerage KB Securities has warned that inventory levels of storage semiconductors from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have fallen to less than 10 days’ supply, with significantly insufficient availability expected next year. The firm’s report on Monday noted that investment in AI infrastructure is expanding at an unprecedented pace, leading to severe supply shortages in the memory chip market. A key factor is the transition to HBM4, which requires approximately three times the wafer volume of traditional DRAM; limited wafer capacity will reduce the availability of production for conventional DRAM. KB Securities expects demand for DRAM and NAND next year to exceed supply by more than 10 percentage points. Research Director Kim Dong-won stated that AI servers will consume HBM, server DDR5, and enterprise SSDs, potentially causing a historic shortage. Global hyperscale data center operators have raised their projected AI infrastructure investment for next year to $1.3 trillion, a 60% increase from last year. The firm anticipates that storage semiconductors will account for 57% of total AI infrastructure investment next year, up from 14% last year; TrendForce estimates this share could reach as high as 68%. Samsung Electronics shares have declined nearly 28% from their peak, while SK Hynitz shares have dropped nearly 40%.