SK Hynix's 72% Margin Leaves Nvidia and TSMC in the Dust as a Wall Street Listing Sparks Controversy

SK Hynix achieves record 72% operating margin, surpassing Nvidia and TSMC, as DRAM prices surge and a US listing sparks dilution concerns.

A 72 percent operating margin is not a typo. SK Hynix posted that staggering figure in the first quarter of 2026, leaving even the most profitable names in the semiconductor world trailing behind. Nvidia managed 67.7 percent over the same period, TSMC 58.1 percent, and Samsung Electronics 43 percent. The South Korean memory chipmaker has become the unlikely profit champion of the AI boom.

The stock has roughly doubled since January, closing Tuesday at a 52-week high of 1.3 million won. That pushed the company's market capitalization to $625.5 billion — enough to leapfrog Exxon Mobil and Visa in the global rankings and claim the No. 16 spot. The rally has also lifted the broader market: the KOSPI index closed at an all-time high of 6,641 points on April 28, pushing South Korea's total stock market capitalization to around $4.04 trillion and overtaking the UK as the world's eighth-largest equity market. SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics together account for more than 40 percent of the KOSPI's total value.

A Three-Year Backlog and a Wall Street Ambition

The company's order book tells the story. Management reports that customer demand already exceeds production capacity for the next three years. In the second quarter, SK Hynix is ramping up deliveries of new memory generations aggressively. Revenue in the first quarter topped 52 trillion won, with operating profit reaching roughly 37.6 trillion won.

To close the valuation gap with US rival Micron, the company is pursuing a listing in New York. A confidential application has already been filed with the SEC. The goal is to capture the premium that American AI infrastructure stocks command.

But the path to Wall Street is getting messy. SK Hynix originally planned to use existing shares for American Depositary Receipts. After legal concerns surfaced, management switched course and now intends to issue new shares equivalent to 2.4 percent of the company's outstanding capital. That has sparked dilution fears.

The Korea Corporate Governance Forum has come out strongly against the new share issuance. The group points to the company's powerful cash flow and argues that SK Hynix should instead buy back and cancel shares. Whether the US listing proceeds as planned now depends on the SEC's review. Meanwhile, analysts are pressing for concrete share-price support measures, given the company's operating profit of over 37 trillion won.

DRAM Prices Surge as Supply Tightens

The market dynamics behind the numbers are striking. DRAM contract prices are expected to rise 58 to 63 percent in the second quarter of 2026, following a first quarter that already delivered growth of over 90 percent. The reason: producing High-Bandwidth Memory for AI infrastructure is soaking up so much DRAM capacity that standard memory prices are being pushed sharply higher.

Remarkably, margins on standard DRAM now exceed those on HBM by a factor of four to five. Manufacturers are prioritizing AI projects, creating a structural supply deficit that industry experts expect to last at least until the second half of 2026. Omdia, a market research firm, has raised its 2026 semiconductor market growth forecast to 62.7 percent.

Analyst Targets Diverge Wildly

The stock's trajectory has split the analyst community. Nomura sees the shares reaching 2.34 million won, Daol targets 2.10 million won, and Mirae Asset forecasts 2.00 million won. BNK, however, has downgraded the stock to "Hold" with a target of 1.30 million won — exactly where it trades today.

The question hanging over the market is whether Nomura's bullish call of 2.34 million won is an ambitious forecast or a conservative floor. With a three-year backlog, record margins, and a structural supply deficit that shows no signs of easing, the bull case has plenty of ammunition. The bear case rests on valuation and the uncertainty surrounding the US listing.

An IEEE First

Amid the financial frenzy, SK Hynix also made history of a different kind. It became the first company ever to receive the IEEE Corporate Innovation Award, with the jury citing its stable mass production of High-Bandwidth Memory chips — the components that have become essential to the global AI infrastructure. The award underscores just how central this South Korean chipmaker has become to the technology world's most important trend.