Seoul, Oct 27 : SK hynix, South Korea's second-biggest chipmaker after Samsung Electronics, is likely to overtake the bigger rival this year for the first time in the chip business' annual operating profit, brokerages said on Sunday.

SK hynix currently dominates the market for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) semiconductors used in artificial intelligence chipsets. It is the sole HBM supplier to US AI chip giant Nvidia.

But Samsung Electronics lags behind its smaller rival as it still awaits quality test approval for its HBM supply to Nvidia, reports Yonhap news agency.

Given the two chipmakers' earnings results in the January-September period, SK hynix is expected to report an operating profit of 23.48 trillion won ($17 billion) this year, higher than Samsung Electronics chip division's 18 trillion won, according to brokerage firms' earnings estimates.

In the first nine months, SK hynix's operating profit of 15.4 trillion won already exceeded Samsung Electronics chip division's 12 trillion won, according to brokerages' earnings consensus.

They expected SK hynix and Samsung to post around 8 trillion won and up to 6 trillion won in operating profit in the October-December quarter, respectively.

Meanwhile, the market capitalisation gap between Samsung Electronics and SK hynix marked the lowest level in 13 years as of Friday.

Samsung Electronics' market capitalisation accounted for 15.85 per cent, or 333.7 trillion won ($240 billion), of the overall value of stocks listed on the Korea Stock Price Index (KOSPI) market as of October 25, according to the Korea Exchange. SK hynix's reached 6.95 per cent, or 146.3 trillion won, of the KOSPI market.

The two chipmakers' market capitalisation gap was 8.9 percent, the lowest in 13 years and three months since their gap marked 8.84 percent in 2011, the main exchange said.

Shares in Samsung Electronics have suffered declines due to lower-than-expected earnings results in the third quarter and delayed quality test approval for the supply of its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to US AI chip giant Nvidia Corp.

In contrast, SK hynix shares continued to rise on an HBM supply deal with Nvidia's robust third-quarter earnings results. SK hynix began mass production of 12-layer HBM chips, the first in the world, solidifying its competitive edge over rivals.

The company plans to supply new 36-gigabit 12-layer HBM3E chips to its customers, including Nvidia, within the year. This marks the industry's first mass production of the highest capacity and fastest HBM chip to date, outpacing other major HBM manufacturers like Samsung and Micron Technology Inc.

Samsung Electronics plunged 28 per cent this year through Friday to 55,900 won, while SK hynix jumped 42 per cent to 201,000 won.

/IANS