Samsung Reclaims Storage Leadership, AI Drives Explosive Storage Demand, Smartphone Shipments Rise Consecutively
In the third quarter of 2025, multiple segments of the technology industry showed positive momentum. In the storage market, Samsung Electronics delivered an outstanding performance. With storage revenue of 19.4 billion US dollars, it surpassed SK Hynix (which recorded 17.5 billion US dollars in storage revenue) to reclaim the position of the world’s top storage player. Samsung’s Q3 storage revenue grew by 25% quarter-on-quarter, outpacing SK Hynix’s 13% growth. Leveraging this recovery momentum, Samsung is expected to maintain its leading position in the fourth quarter. However, Samsung has not yet regained the top spot in the DRAM segment. Its HBM business is projected to achieve substantial growth next year with the launch of HBM3E and HBM4 products.
AI large models are strongly driving explosive growth in storage demand. As AI applications shift from the training phase to the inference phase, the structure of storage usage has been transformed. Taking GPT-5 as an example, its inference process requires a significant amount of HBM, DRAM, and NAND storage. AI servers adopt a three-tier storage architecture, where HBM, DRAM, and NAND Flash each play their respective roles. Based on the calculation that global users generate 24 million tokens per second, GPT-5 accounts for 25% of the global DRAM supply and 22% of the global NAND supply. If the token generation volume doubles in 2026, these demand proportions will rise to 43% and 39% respectively. The annual growth rate of memory demand will exceed 100%, and the market may face a supply-demand gap.
In response to the large-capacity storage demand brought about by cloud services and generative AI, Toshiba plans to launch a 40TB data center – dedicated HDD with 12-disk packaging and a 3.5-inch form factor in 2027. This hard drive uses a glass substrate instead of an aluminum substrate and integrates MAMR technology, which enhances multiple performance metrics, with a per-disk capacity of at least 3.3TB. Toshiba is also researching the combination of 12-disk stacking technology with HAMR, and relevant technologies will be showcased at the IDEMA Symposium on October 17.
The smartphone market also has good news, with global smartphone shipments increasing for two consecutive quarters. In the third quarter of 2025, global shipments reached 322.7 million units, a year-on-year increase of 2.6%. Samsung ranked first with 61.4 million units shipped and a 19% market share; Apple followed closely with 58.6 million units shipped. Xiaomi, Transsion, and vivo ranked third to fifth respectively, among which Transsion achieved a year-on-year growth rate of 13.6%. Despite uncertainties in the economy and tariffs, consumer demand for high-end models and models with AI functions has driven the growth of shipments. IDC predicts that smartphone shipments will remain positive by the end of the year.