SK Hynix Doubles Down on HBM with $67 Billion Capacity Splurge and $14 Billion IPO Plans Amid Market Turmoil

SK Hynix stock drops 10% on Broadcom AI miss, but expansion plans and HBM dominance position it for long-term growth; ADR listing up to $14B.

The disconnect between near-term market sentiment and long-term industrial ambition rarely gapes as wide as it does for SK Hynix this week. Even as the memory chip giant lays out plans to nearly double its monthly DRAM wafer output to one million units by the early 2030s — a bet worth roughly 120 trillion won that centers on a sprawling new complex in Yongin — its shares suffered a brutal 10% single-day rout on Friday, clipped by a disappointing AI revenue forecast from US peer Broadcom.

Broadcom projected $16 billion in AI-related sales against the $17.2 billion the market had baked in. The miss sent the PHLX Semiconductor Index crashing 10.3%, and SK Hynix closed at 2,070,000 Korean won. On the week, the stock shed about 11%, though year-to-date it still holds a gain of roughly 206%. Retail investors in South Korea have already begun scooping up leveraged ETFs on both SK Hynix and Samsung, treating the dip as an entry point.

The selloff does little to undermine SK Hynix’s grip on the high-bandwidth memory market, where it commanded a 58% share in the first quarter of 2026. That dominance drove an unprecedented operating margin of 72% and pushed quarterly revenue above 50 trillion won for the first time. The cash generated from that super-cycle is now being channeled into one of the most ambitious capacity expansions in semiconductor history.

At the heart of the plan is the Yongin cluster, which will be built in six phases starting in February 2027. Each phase adds 60,000 wafers per month, with the site reaching a total of 360,000 monthly wafers by the first half of 2030. Concurrently, the M15X facility in Cheongju begins production in the second half of 2026 at 40,000 wafers a month, rising to 80,000 by 2027. The push is fueled by high-bandwidth memory, which requires roughly three times the wafer capacity of standard DDR5.

To help fund that buildout, SK Hynix is preparing a US listing of American depositary receipts. The company filed a confidential ADR application with the SEC in March and reports “enormously positive” feedback from potential investors. Proceeds could reach $14 billion, giving the expansion an immediate capital injection. The stock’s relative strength index has eased back to 59.8 after the rout, signaling that the overbought condition that prevailed before the drop has dissipated.

Adding to the strategic tailwinds, Nvidia chief Jensen Huang traveled to Seoul this week and met SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won. Huang confirmed that SK Hynix is qualified to supply HBM4 memory for Nvidia’s upcoming Vera-Rubin platform. Analysts expect the Korean firm to capture 60% to 70% of the HBM4 volume for that next-generation hardware, building on its existing 58% market share. The stock now sits 14% below the all-time high reached in early June, but remains 42% above its 50-day moving average of roughly 1.46 million won — a technical picture that leaves the longer-term uptrend intact, even as the sector’s mood darkens.