SK Hynix's market value surpasses Samsung for the first time in 26 years, with Korean brokerages stating there is still 50% upside potential

Author: Claude, Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Guide: On June 22, SK Hynix’s intraday market value reached 208 trillion won, surpassing Samsung Electronics for the first time in 26 years. Hanwha Investment & Securities raised its target price directly from 1.63 million won to 4.3 million won, the highest among Korean brokerages. The core logic is that long-term supply agreements (LTA) and HBM demand have fundamentally changed the volatility of profitability for memory chips. The stock is up more than 340% year-to-date; it even briefly broke above 3 million won in pre-market trading, but later fell by more than 5% during official trading.

On June 22, SK Hynix’s intraday share price rose to 2.95 million won, a record high, and its market cap reached 208.1 trillion won, surpassing Samsung Electronics’ 207.3 trillion won. This is the first time since November 2000 that Samsung has lost the top position in South Korea’s stock market by market value.

According to The Korea Herald, as of 3:15 p.m. that afternoon, SK Hynix closed at 2.91 million won, up 5.32%, while Samsung Electronics inched down 0.28% to 353,000 won. SK Hynix is up 341.9% for the year, while Samsung Electronics is up 197.7% over the same period. The two companies are both in the semiconductor industry, but the market is “voting with its feet”: in the AI era, companies that directly benefit from infrastructure build-out receive higher valuation premiums than diversified giants.

Hanwha Investment & Securities calls for a 4.3 million won target price, double the previous value

On June 22, Hanwha Investment & Securities analyst Park Jun-young raised SK Hynix’s target price from 1.63 million won to 4.3 million won—nearly 1.6 times—making it the highest target price currently given by Korean brokerages.

Park Jun-young’s core argument is that SK Hynix is no longer a company whose earnings fluctuate sharply; it is transforming into a business that can generate sustained high-level profits. He pointed out that Korean memory chip manufacturers have long suffered valuation discounts, but with the expansion of long-term supply agreements (LTA) and a surge in HBM demand, earnings visibility has fundamentally improved.

According to The Seoul Economic Daily, when calculating the target price, Hanwha uses a 10x price-to-earnings ratio (PER), which is the lowest among global semiconductor companies. SK Hynix’s current 12-month forward PER is about 6.6x, below Micron, another memory manufacturer. Hanwha forecasts that even if the memory market weakens, SK Hynix’s operating profit margin will remain at at least 30%, whereas during past down cycles, this figure fell below 10% and even turned negative.

Hanwha also lists an ADR listing as a catalyst. Park Jun-young said that an ADR listing within the year would give SK Hynix the chance to directly benchmark its valuation in the U.S. stock market against peers such as Micron: “SK Hynix is currently the best investment target on both fundamentals and momentum.”

Multiple brokerages move up target prices in unison, and the valuation framework for the memory industry is being rewritten

Hanwha is not the only case. In the past two months, Korean and international brokerages have seen a new round of frequent target-price increases for SK Hynix.

SK Securities raised its target price to 3 million won on May 7, using a 10x PER framework—then the highest among Korean brokerages. KB Securities increased it to 3 million won on May 15, forecasting that the operating profit margin in 2026 will reach 78.1%, and said memory semiconductors are becoming “a scarce strategic asset that determines the overall performance of AI systems.” Citigroup raised its target from 1.7 million won to 3.1 million won on May 12, citing that HBM price growth in the second half exceeded expectations. JPMorgan raised its target to 3 million won on May 18 and simultaneously raised its per-share earnings forecasts for 2026 to 2028 by 9% to 20%.

On May 15, Nomura Securities issued a report that bluntly said, “This time it’s really different,” arguing that the valuation logic of the memory industry is undergoing a paradigm-level leap. Risk premiums should move closer to TSMC, rather than continuing to apply the traditional cyclical stock framework.

Behind these upward revisions lies shared logic: LTA has changed the pricing mechanism of the memory industry. According to Hanwha’s analysis, the long-term supply agreements currently signed include price decline protection clauses and legal safeguards for contract performance. As a result, manufacturers can maintain a certain level of profit margin even during market downturns. This is completely different from the past pattern, where DRAM spot prices swung violently and manufacturers passively endured the cycle.

Q1 performance: Revenue first breaks 50 trillion won; operating margin 72%

The target price increases are supported by hard data. In SK Hynix’s fiscal 2026 Q1, revenue reached 52.58 trillion won, up 198% year over year, marking the first time it surpassed the 50 trillion won threshold. Operating profit was 37.61 trillion won, up 405%. Operating margin came in at 72%, exceeding Nvidia’s 65% and setting a new record in the semiconductor manufacturing industry.

HBM is the core driving force. SK Hynix currently holds about 70% to 80% of the global HBM market and is the main supplier of Nvidia’s AI accelerators. According to a Goldman Sachs report released in April, the forecast for the global DRAM supply-demand gap in 2026 widens from 3.3% to 4.9%, the most severe in 15 years. The top three memory manufacturers are basically sold out of capacity this year. With wafer fab construction cycles of four to five years, it means there is almost no additional capacity coming online within the year.

When UBS raised its earnings forecast for SK Hynix in April, it pointed out that AI-driven HBM demand continues to erode DDR capacity. Combined with the server refresh cycle and a synchronized surge in storage SSD demand, the global DRAM supply-demand gap will persist through Q4 2027. UBS called it “a storage supercycle that has not been seen in nearly 30 years.”

Broke 3 million won in pre-market trading, but fell more than 5% in official trading

During pre-market trading on June 23, SK Hynix briefly touched 3.002 million won on Nextrade’s NXT platform, breaking through the 3 million won level. However, after official trading opened, the share price pulled back. By 11 a.m., it had reached 2.75 million won, down 5.79% from the previous close.

The direct reason for the decline is that global mega-cap technology stocks were broadly weaker overall. Even though the U.S. stock storage sector performed relatively well overnight (Micron up 6.9%, SanDisk up 4.1%), the KOSPI rose 7.53% this month—yet the gains are highly concentrated in just Samsung and Hynix. Excluding these two stocks, the KOSPI 200 index actually fell 2.48% over the same period, indicating extreme market divergence.

According to The Korea Herald, some brokerages have issued warnings: with Samsung Electronics’ forecast profit scale and growth rates higher than SK Hynix’s, the market cap overtaking may be a sign of short-term overheating.

However, data tracked by Mirae Asset Securities for high-return investors (top 1% in the past month) shows that the stock with the most net buying on the morning of the 23rd is still SK Hynix. These investors view the pullback as an opportunity to add positions.