SK Hynix overtakes Samsung as South Korea’s most valuable listed company

SEOUL: Semiconductor maker SK Hynix on Monday overtook Samsung Electronics to become South Korea’s most valuable listed company, driven by surging demand for high-bandwidth memory chips used in artificial intelligence systems.

Shares of SK Hynix closed 5.6% higher, lifting its market capitalisation to 2,080.4 trillion won, or about $1.35 trillion.

Samsung Electronics shares slipped 0.14%, giving the company a market value of 2,066.7 trillion won, excluding preferred shares.

Samsung said its market capitalisation should include preferred shares, which would put its value at 2,246.4 trillion won at Monday’s close.

SK Hynix has become a major beneficiary of the global artificial intelligence boom as the dominant supplier of high-bandwidth memory chips to customers including Nvidia and Alphabet’s Google.

The company’s shares have risen more than 340% this year, making it the world’s most valuable memory chipmaker and lifting its market value above Samsung and Micron.

High-bandwidth memory, or HBM, is used with advanced artificial intelligence processors and has become a critical part of infrastructure powering applications such as ChatGPT and other AI models.

Unlike Samsung, which manufactures memory chips, logic chips and consumer electronics including smartphones and televisions, SK Hynix is focused mainly on memory chips.

Samsung had held the top position among South Korean listed companies since 2000.

Analysts said the rise of customised AI memory had changed the economics of the semiconductor industry and helped SK Hynix establish a lead in high-value memory products.

SK Hynix’s rise marks a major turnaround for the company. In 2002, then-Hynix Semiconductor came close to being sold to Micron after debt from an earlier expansion left the company under financial strain.

The transaction collapsed and the company remained under creditor control for nearly a decade. Its shares fell as low as 135 won in 2003.

The company later followed the memory industry’s boom-and-bust cycle. In 2023, a downturn in memory prices led SK Hynix to report an annual operating loss of 7.73 trillion won.

A year later, as investment in artificial intelligence accelerated among companies including Microsoft, Google and Meta, SK Hynix reported a record operating profit of 23.5 trillion won for 2024.

Analysts attribute SK Hynix’s position in the AI supply chain to its decision to keep investing in HBM during the memory industry downturn.

HBM chips are stacked vertically to deliver higher performance and lower power consumption, making them harder to replace than conventional memory products.

By 2025, SK Hynix had captured 61% of the global HBM market, compared with 17% for Samsung and 21% for Micron.

SK Hynix was founded in 1983 as part of Hyundai and was later spun off before being acquired by SK Group.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said in a book published in January that the acquisition was aimed at turning Hynix from a commodity memory producer into a semiconductor company making essential products.

Analysts said Samsung’s position as the world’s largest DRAM producer could also come under pressure.

Bank of America estimates SK Hynix’s monthly DRAM output at around 589,000 wafers this year, compared with about 691,000 wafers for Samsung.

However, SK Hynix is expected to increase DRAM output by about 38% between 2025 and 2028, compared with estimated growth of about 17.5% at Samsung.

That would narrow SK Hynix’s production gap with Samsung to less than 10% by 2028, from about 23% in 2025.

Reuters has reported that SK Hynix is choosing Nasdaq for its planned US listing, a move that could broaden its global investor base and increase its profile among international investors.