SK Hynix’s $26.5 Billion Nasdaq Debut Puts the Spotlight on HBM Dominance and a Hefty Valuation Discount

South Korea's memory chip giant SK Hynix completes largest-ever US IPO by a foreign company, raising $26.5 billion as AI demand for HBM chips surges. Shares debut on NYSE.

South Korea’s SK Hynix has pulled off a landmark capital markets move, raising $26.5 billion through a New York listing of American Depositary Receipts—the largest first-time equity sale by any foreign company on US exchanges. The offering, priced at $149 per ADR, drew more than seven times the available supply, underscoring an investor frenzy for exposure to the memory-chip maker that now sits at the heart of the AI boom.

The shares began trading on Friday under the temporary ticker SKHYV and will switch to the permanent ticker SKHY on Monday. SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won travelled to New York personally for the bell-ringing ceremony, a gesture that signals how seriously the conglomerate takes its push to narrow a persistent valuation gap with US rival Micron Technology. At present, SK Hynix trades at 5.5 times forward earnings, compared with Micron’s 6.66 times—a discount that one of the company’s stated goals for the ADR listing is to close. Its primary listing will remain in Seoul.

The capital-raising coincides with an extraordinary run of financial performance. In the first quarter of 2026, SK Hynix posted revenue of 52.58 trillion won ($38.1 billion), a 198% surge from the same period last year. Net profit margin jumped to 77% from 46%, propelled almost entirely by high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which are critical components in AI accelerators. The company commands a 58% share of the HBM market by revenue, and in mid-2026 began shipping samples of its next-generation HBM4E chip, which stacks 12 layers of memory, to key clients.

Nearly all of the proceeds from the ADR sale are earmarked for capacity expansion, with a particular focus on the United States. SK Hynix is building its first American fabrication plant in West Lafayette, Indiana—a $4 billion facility dedicated to advanced packaging, a vital step in HBM production, due for completion in 2028. The company expects up to $458 million in grants from the US CHIPS and Science Act, along with as much as $570 million in potential government loans. Separately, its Solidigm storage business is expanding in Sacramento, California.

Wall Street remains divided on whether the stock can sustain its momentum. CNBC’s Jim Cramer called SK Hynix an attractive AI bet but advised taking only small positions given the extreme price swings. Daniel Newman, CEO of the Futurum Group, struck a more cautious note, pointing to the cyclical nature of memory chips: they tend to run hot in every megacycle, he warned, “then fall hard.” He added that if AI demand stays elevated, memory names could nonetheless look like bargains.

Back in Seoul, the domestic stock tells a more jittery story. Shares closed Friday at 2,180,000 won, down 0.27% on the day and 10.10% lower over the prior seven sessions. That weekly drop stands in sharp contrast to a year-to-date gain of 222.01% and a 340% advance from the cyclical low in October. The all-time high of 2,987,000 won, reached on June 25, is now 27% above the current price—a gap that highlights how sensitive the stock has become to shifts in sentiment around AI memory demand.

Annualised 30-day volatility sits at 114.70%, a level that suggests even fundamental believers in the HBM story are braced for wild swings. The Nasdaq listing, now live, will test whether US investors bring a steadier hand to the stock or absorb the volatility embedded in Seoul’s trading. The answer, for many, hinges on how quickly SK Hynix can turn its HBM4E samples into volume shipments and whether it can finally persuade the market to value its shares more in line with Micron’s.