⚠ The Queue Protects Everybody EquallyModerate threat

SK hynix (SKHY) — threat to the moat

Share lost because you could not build fast enough is a capacity problem that reverses; share lost to a better product is not.

It is comfortable to describe the equipment bottleneck as a barrier to entry. It is more accurately a speed limit applied to everyone, and the leader has the most volume to lose from it.

DRAM share against revenue growth, Q1 202634.8%Share 202529.1%Share Q1 2026+50.9%Revenue growth QoQShare fell while revenue rose by half in a quarter - the signature of a capacity limit.
Some of the share loss was ceded rather than lost. The two look identical from outside.

SK hynix's share is falling while demand is rising — DRAM went from 34.8% for 2025 to 29.1% in the first quarter of 20261, in the same three months its revenue rose 50.9%2. Some of that is competitive, and some of it is simply that the leader cannot expand fast enough to hold a majority of a market growing this quickly — a share loss caused by the customer having to buy from somebody in order to buy enough.

That distinction matters for what an owner should conclude. Share lost to a competitor's better product is a moat problem; share lost because demand outran your capacity is a capacity problem, and it reverses when capacity arrives.

The two are hard to separate from outside, which is why the more reliable signal is absolute HBM revenue growth rather than share.

The falsifier is share continuing to fall after M15X and the new packaging capacity are running. At that point the constraint has been removed and the explanation has to be competitive.

References
  1. Third-party estimateDRAM share went from 34.8% for 2025 to 29.1% in the first quarter of 2026.
    SK hynix Inc., semi-annual business report for the six months to 30 June 2026 (SEC Form 6-K, 18 August 2026) — 'The Company determines supply volumes and prices on a monthly and quarterly basis by mutual agreement with major customers, and there is no order backlog based on long term supply contracts.' Total equity W 262,693,228 million at 30 June 2026 against W 120,666,751 million at 31 December 2025; cash and cash equivalents, short-term financial instruments and short-term investment assets W 87,957,923 million against W 34,942,253 million; total borrowings W 18,586,634 million against W 22,247,905 million; debt-to-equity 32.80%, net borrowing ratio not disclosed because it is negative. For the six months to 30 June 2026, revenues of W 17,608,702 million (13.35%) and W 17,187,421 million (13.03%) were derived from external Customers A and B respectively; for the six months to 30 June 2025, W 10,890,639 million (27.31%) came from Customer A. IDC market share: DRAM 29.9% in 2023, 33.4% in 2024, 34.8% in 2025 and 29.1% in Q1 2026; NAND 19.6%, 21.4%, 20.9% and 18.5%. Gartner's world DRAM market: US$78.7bn in 2022 (-15.4%), US$49.9bn in 2023 (-36.5%), US$91.6bn in 2024 (+82.7%) and US$146.9bn in 2025 (+60.0%). Announced investments include approximately W 15 trillion for M15X in Cheongju, approximately W 19 trillion for the P&T7 advanced packaging plant and W 21,608.1 billion for Yongin, against long-term plans of roughly W 600 trillion for the Yongin cluster and W 100 trillion for Cheongju. The company developed the world's first 321-layer QLC NAND. China's State Administration for Market Regulation cleared the Intel NAND acquisition conditionally, obliging the group to maintain a reasonable pricing policy, increase production and support the entry of third-party competitors into the Chinese eSSD market for five years from December 2021. — six months to 30 June 2026 · publ. 2026-08-18 · source ↗
  2. ReportedRevenue rose 50.9% between the first and second quarters of 2026.
    SK hynix Inc., preliminary results of operations for the second quarter of 2026 (SEC Form 6-K, 29 July 2026) — revenue W 79,318,746 million, up 50.9% on Q1 2026's W 52,576,287 million and 256.8% on Q2 2025's W 22,231,952 million; operating profit W 60,542,608 million, up 61.0% sequentially and 557.2% year on year, an operating margin of about 76%; profit before income tax W 122,708,355 million; profit for the period W 93,922,593 million. First-half 2026 revenue W 131,895,033 million, operating profit W 98,152,891 million and profit W 134,268,502 million. Prepared on a consolidated basis under K-IFRS and unaudited. — Q2 2026 (quarter ended 30 June 2026) · publ. 2026-07-29 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 23, 2026