SK hynix overtakes Samsung as South Korea's most valuable company on HBM demand
Tags Infrastructure · AI
SK hynix surpassed Samsung Electronics as South Korea's most valuable listed company for the first time since 2000, reaching a market cap of 2,080.4 trillion won ($1.35 trillion) driven by explosive demand for high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI accelerators. SK hynix stock rallied over 340% year-to-date, built on its 61% share of the global HBM market versus 17% for Samsung. Samsung disputes the ranking, saying its market cap including preferred shares would be 2,246.4 trillion won. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirmed all three HBM suppliers (Samsung, SK hynix, Micron) passed HBM4 certification for the Vera Rubin platform.
Technical significance
SK hynix's market dominance in HBM memory directly impacts the AI accelerator supply chain, as Nvidia's latest Vera Rubin platform requires HBM4. Samsung's inability to qualify HBM4 as quickly gives SK a structural advantage in AI infrastructure pricing power through at least 2027.