Both Korean memory giants ramped up fab spending through the first half. Combined semiconductor-facility investment reached KRW 43.2 trillion, 35.1 percent above the KRW 32 trillion of a year earlier, according to the companies’ semi-annual reports cited by Etoday.
Most of the increase came from SK hynix, whose KRW 17.6 trillion outlay climbed 56.4 percent as it added HBM, high-capacity DRAM and enterprise SSD capacity. Samsung’s semiconductor arm invested KRW 25.6 trillion. Both companies said their memory lines ran at effectively 100 percent utilization through the period.
Research spending climbed even faster. Samsung’s company-wide R&D hit a record KRW 27.4 trillion, up 51.5 percent year on year, while SK hynix nearly doubled its R&D outlay to KRW 6 trillion.
The filings also exposed a shifting customer base. Nvidia accounted for 13.35 percent of SK hynix’s first-half revenue, down from a 24 percent share for all of 2025, as the memory maker diversified toward other hyperscalers. Nvidia also failed to make Samsung’s list of five major customers, which was led by Alphabet, Amazon and Apple and covered roughly 25 percent of revenue.
