Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Samsung Electronics stock price soars on foldable phones, AI chips
Samsung Electronics building in Seocho District in southern Seoul / Yonhap
By Anna J. Park
By Anna J. Park
The stock price of Samsung Electronics has been on the rise for two consecutive trading sessions, following news of its supply of high-bandwidth memory product HBM3 to Nvidia.
The stock price of the Korean tech giant ended at 71,200 won ($53.96) on Monday's closing, a 0.28 percent increase from Friday's session, continuing its upward trend since Friday.
The price of Samsung Electronics soared to 71,000 won on Friday's session, marking a 6.13 percent increase from the previous day. This is the first time in a month that the stock price has reclaimed the 70,000 won mark since Aug. 1 when it closed at 71,100 won.
Friday's surge is largely attributed to media reports earlier in the afternoon, announcing the Korean tech giant will start supplying NVIDIA with the fourth-generation HBM3, as early as next month. HBM is a standardized high-speed stacked memory technology, providing wide channels for data and shortening information transmission time.
Local media outlets reported that Samsung passed NVIDIA's quality test for HBM3 on Thursday, simultaneously entering into a supply contract. The contract also states the Korea-headquartered global chipmaker's supply plan for the next year. As Samsung Electronics has succeeded in securing NVIDIA, following AMD, as its key clients, Samsung's global market share in the HBM market is expected to surpass 50 percent in the next year.
So far, NVIDIA has been exclusively supplied with HBM3 from SK hynix. With the news, the stock price of the SK hynix fell to 120,000 won at Friday's closing, a 1.48 percent fall from the previous session. The stock price went on a further decrease on Monday, finishing at 119,200 won, a 0.67 percent fall from Friday.
Benjamin Braun, Samsung Europe's chief marketing officer, delivers a keynote speech during a press conference at CityCube Berlin, Germany, Thursday. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics
Another factor that boosted Samsung stock price's latest surge is that Benjamin Braun, chief marketing officer of Samsung Europe, announced at the IFA 2023, an annual tech trade show in Berlin, Germany, on Thursday, local time, that Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Fold 5 have both achieved new sales records in Europe. He highlighted that the sales volume of foldable smartphones in Europe has surpassed that of the Galaxy Note series on an annual basis.