Samsung crossses $1 trillion valuation as AI frenzy drives historic rally, lifting shares over 15%

Shares of Samsung Electronics surged more than 15% Wednesday, pushing the chip giant’s market capitalization past the $1 trillion mark as investors continued to pile into artificial intelligence-linked stocks.

Samsung became the second Asian company to cross the $1 trillion mark, after TSMC. The company first crossed that $1 trillion market capitalization threshold on Feb. 26, according to FactSet data.

The company’s stock has breached a record high and is on course for the largest single-day gain on record, data from FactSet showed.

The rally followed Samsung Electronics’ record first-quarter earnings last week. Operating profit surged more than eightfold to 57.2 trillion won, while revenue climbed to a record 133.9 trillion Korean won.

Samsung’s first-quarter operating profit also topped its full-year 2025 profit of 43.6 trillion won.

The gains also followed a Bloomberg report that Apple has held exploratory talks with Samsung and Intel to produce chips for Apple devices in the U.S., potentially diversifying beyond longtime supplier TSMC.

Shares of South Korean chip behemoth SK Hynix also jumped more than 10%, helping push the benchmark index Kospi more than 5% to top 7,000 for the first time.

Sales of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM chips, have boosted Samsung’s profitability, but the company continues to face intense competition after losing its early lead in the HBM market to rival SK Hynix.

Samsung has been working to narrow the gap with SK Hynix in the fast-growing AI memory segment. In February, the company said it had become the world’s first firm to begin mass production of HBM4 chips and start deliveries to undisclosed customers.

HBM4 represents the sixth and latest generation of high-bandwidth memory technology. The chips are expected to play a key role in Nvidia’s upcoming Vera Rubin AI architecture, which aims to power advanced AI workloads in data centers.

Analysts said the sharp rally in Samsung Electronics has been driven by booming AI-related memory demand, tightening supply conditions and improving competitiveness in high-bandwidth memory chips.

“There is a tremendous shortage in DRAM and NAND memory chips due to torrid AI demand, which is very memory hungry due to AI’s high bandwidth and storage needs,” said Morningstar’s technology equity analyst Yu Jing Jie.

DRAM chips are fast, volatile memory chips that temporarily store data while processors actively use it, while NAND chips are slower, non-volatile storage chips that retain data even when devices are powered off.

While memory makers are scrambling to expand production, Yu also noted that new semiconductor capacity typically takes two to three years to come online, meaning supply is likely to remain constrained in the near term. That has fueled expectations for stronger earnings growth and margins over the next one to two years.

Even with new factories expected to ramp up across the industry over the next several years, Rolf Bulk, head of semiconductor and infrastructure at The Futurum Group, said current high memory prices and strong earnings for Samsung and its peers are likely to remain supported for some time.

Bulk added that customer feedback on Samsung’s latest HBM4 products has been positive, helping narrow the technology gap with SK Hynix.

While SK Hynix still leads the HBM market with an estimated 55% share compared with Samsung’s roughly 25%, Bulk said investors are less concerned about the gap because conventional DRAM profitability has recently overtaken HBM margins.

— CNBC’s Dylan Butts contributed to this report.