SK Hynix has become South Korea’s most valuable listed company, overtaking Samsung Electronics by market capitalization. For the memory maker, it is an almost cinematic reversal: back in the early 2000s, the company, then known as Hynix Semiconductor, was drowning in debt and came close to being sold to Micron in 2002.
The main growth driver has been demand for HBM memory, without which modern AI systems are hard to imagine. Against the backdrop of the artificial intelligence boom, SK Hynix shares have risen by more than 340% since the start of the year, while the company itself has strengthened its position among key suppliers of high-speed memory. Its main rivals in this market remain Samsung and Micron.
After another 5.6% rise in its shares, SK Hynix’s market value reached roughly $1.35 trillion and slightly exceeded that of Samsung Electronics. For the Korean market, this is a notable moment: Samsung had held the country’s top corporate spot since 2000. However, that status can change quickly, because market capitalization is directly tied to share-price movements.
Samsung, for its part, said that a full calculation of market value should also include the company’s preferred shares. Including them, Samsung’s capitalization at the close of trading was about $1.47 trillion, meaning it formally remained above SK Hynix.
Still, the very fact that SK Hynix has moved so close to Samsung and, by one calculation, surpassed it shows how strongly investors are revaluing memory makers amid the buildout of AI infrastructure. A company that could have been sold to a rival two decades ago has now become one of the main beneficiaries of a new technology cycle.