SK Hynix joins Samsung in 200 trillion won market cap club

SK Hynix Inc. surpassed 200 trillion won ($147 billion) in market capitalization on Tuesday, becoming the second Korean stock in history to cross the threshold after Samsung Electronics Co.

SK Hynix's share price jumped 7.32% to close at 278,500 won on the day, outperforming a 2.96% gain in the broader Kospi index and a 4.31% rise in Samsung Electronics.

Its market capitalization climbed to 202.75 trillion won based on the closing price, doubling in one and a half years. In comparison, Samsung Electronics’ market value stood at 358.13 trillion won.

Year to date, SK Hynix's share price has soared 63%, driven by its leadership in the market of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), high-performing chips used for artificial intelligence accelerators.

In comparison, Samsung Electronics’ shares have advanced 13.3%, while the Kospi has spiked 30% since the start of this year.

In June 2022, SK Hynix became the world’s first company to mass-produce HBM3 and delivered the fourth generation of HBM exclusively to Nvidia Corp., the top supplier of AI accelerators.

It has further cemented its top position in the advanced chip market, leading the fifth-generation HBM segment with the mass production of HBM3E in 2024.

In the first quarter of this year, SK Hynix overtook archrival Samsung in the global DRAM market for the first time, commanding a 36% share compared to Samsung’s 34%.

Analysts forecast SK Hynix’s share price to continue its upward run, buoyed by the growing demand for high-performance DRAM and NAND flash chips.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang and Chae-Yeon Kim at hjs@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.