SK Hynix’s market value has surpassed the $1 trillion mark, following a more than 900% surge in its stock price over the past year, reflecting investor confidence in its position as a leading advanced memory chip supplier in the artificial intelligence sector.
SK Hynix, Nvidia Corp.’s largest high-bandwidth memory supplier, saw its stock surge 11% on Wednesday, making it the third Asian company to join the trillion-dollar club after Samsung Electronics Co., which reached the milestone earlier this month. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 5%.
SK Hynix holds a pivotal position at a critical juncture in global artificial intelligence development. Memory chips have become the key bottleneck determining the pace of data center expansion. Investors and analysts expect memory chip shortages to persist until 2027, granting SK Hynix and its competitors Samsung and Micron Technology extraordinary pricing power in negotiations with the world’s largest tech companies. This week, Micron Technology’s market value also surpassed the $1 trillion mark.
Barclays analyst Simon Coles and others wrote in a report earlier this month: “We expect SK Hynix to maintain its leadership position in the high-bandwidth memory sector.”
They added that product pricing is expected to remain favorable and supply tightness will continue. The potential listing of SK Hynix stock in the U.S. was also highlighted as a catalyst.
Even though SK Hynix’s stock price has surged this year, its price-to-earnings ratio remains at just six times the expected earnings for the next year, compared to 27 times for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.
“Judging solely by profitability, it’s difficult to predict short-term peaks,” said Cha Soo-yoon, equity investment manager at Seoul Bull Asset Management. “Even if investors don’t assign large tech companies a 20 times price-to-earnings ratio, many believe there is still room for a tenfold increase in the short term.”
In April this year, SK Hynix reported a fivefold increase in quarterly profits and forecasted that demand for HBM will exceed supply over the next three years. According to Counterpoint Research, by the fourth quarter of 2025, SK Hynix will maintain its global HBM market revenue share at 57%, with Samsung and Micron ranking second and third, respectively, at 22% and 21%.
Meanwhile, SK Hynix has filed an application to list its American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) this year. If the plan proceeds as expected, it will make the company one of the largest foreign firms to debut in New York, offering U.S. investors another avenue to participate in the artificial intelligence storage market.
“Since the low in late March, semiconductor stocks have shown an unusual trend, with memory stocks leading the way,” said Richard Clode, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson. “The rise in memory stocks is justified, as strong artificial intelligence demand has driven record-high profit margins, and long-term contracts now being signed are making this cycle more sustainable.”
