SK Hynix surpasses Samsung to become South Korea’s most valuable company

SK Hynix overtook Samsung Electronics on Monday to become South Korea’s most valuable publicly listed company, marking a dramatic turnaround for a chipmaker that nearly collapsed under debt two decades ago, Reuters reported.

The company, now the dominant supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in artificial intelligence systems by customers such as Nvidia and Google, has emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the global AI boom, CE Report quotes AGERPRES.

At 12:42 p.m. local time in Seoul, SK Hynix shares were up 6.15% at 2,934,000 won, lifting the company’s market capitalization to 2.091 quadrillion won ($1.36 trillion). This slightly surpassed Samsung Electronics, whose shares gained 0.99% to 357,000 won, giving it a market value of 2.090 quadrillion won.

Since the beginning of the year, SK Hynix shares have surged more than 340%, outperforming Samsung’s 200% gain.

The milestone comes as artificial intelligence continues to reshape the global semiconductor industry, turning memory chips from widely traded commodities into critical infrastructure components powering applications such as ChatGPT and advanced AI models.

Unlike Samsung, whose operations span memory chips, logic chips, and consumer electronics, SK Hynix is primarily focused on memory semiconductors. Samsung had held the title of South Korea’s most valuable company since 2000.

“The emergence of customized AI memory has fundamentally changed the dynamics of the semiconductor industry and enabled SK Hynix to establish itself as a market leader,” said Kim Sunwoo, an analyst at Meritz Securities.

For SK Hynix, becoming South Korea’s most valuable listed company represents the culmination of one of the most remarkable corporate recoveries in the country’s history.

In 2002, Hynix Semiconductor was close to being sold to Micron after accumulating heavy debts during an aggressive expansion period. The deal ultimately failed, leaving the company under creditor control for nearly a decade. Its shares fell to just 135 won in 2003 and were widely regarded as a penny stock among investors.

Over the following years, Hynix’s performance mirrored the traditional boom-and-bust cycles of the memory-chip industry. In 2023, a severe downturn in memory-chip prices resulted in an annual operating loss of 7.73 trillion won.

The company’s fortunes changed rapidly as the AI boom accelerated. With technology giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Meta investing heavily in artificial intelligence infrastructure, SK Hynix reported a record annual operating profit of 23.5 trillion won in 2024, marking a historic turnaround and cementing its position at the forefront of the AI-driven semiconductor market.

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