SK Hynix’s $942 Billion Milestone: How a Samsung Strike and HBM Shortage Inverted the Chip Hierarchy

A severe DRAM and NAND shortage has pushed SK Hynix's market cap above $942 billion, overtaking rival Samsung Electronics' valuation for the first time amid labor unrest and surging AI demand.

The numbers are staggering by any measure. SK Hynix now commands a market capitalisation of roughly $942 billion, placing it within arm’s reach of the trillion-dollar club that includes Walmart and Berkshire Hathaway. But what is driving this ascent is not simply AI hype — it is a supply crunch so severe that every major memory product the company makes is already sold out.

“Demand for DRAM, NAND and HBM is completely outstripping what we can deliver,” the company has acknowledged, a statement that resonates across the entire semiconductor supply chain. Goldman Sachs has revised its estimate for the DRAM supply gap from 3.3 percent to 4.9 percent, warning that the tightness represents the most acute shortage in 15 years. The scarcity is forcing the market to rethink how it prices memory firms, increasingly decoupling standard DRAM from the high-margin HBM chips that power AI servers.

For the first time, that rethinking has vaulted SK Hynix’s valuation above its far larger domestic rival. The expected price-to-earnings ratio for 2026 now stands at 6.79 for SK Hynix, fractionally ahead of Samsung Electronics’ 6.77. Three months ago the gap ran the other way by nearly three points — Samsung at 8.08 versus SK Hynix at 5.28. The inversion marks a structural shift in how investors view the Korean memory sector: the smaller specialist has become the premium play.

A key catalyst is the labour unrest brewing at Samsung. The company faces a planned 18-day strike by its union starting May 21, following failed mediation talks. JPMorgan estimates that higher wages from any settlement could shave 7 to 12 percent off Samsung’s operating profit. Should the stoppage meaningfully disrupt production of high-bandwidth memory or conventional DRAM, clients scrambling for AI-server components would have little choice but to redirect orders elsewhere. SK Hynix and Micron stand as the natural beneficiaries.

The effect on the stock has been electric. On Thursday, SK Hynix shares touched a pre-market high above 2.0 million won before settling at 1,970,000 won, a dip of 0.3 percent from the prior close but still just a hair below Wednesday’s record. The year-to-date gain has reached roughly 191 percent, while the past 30 days alone have added 78.6 percent. Such velocity invites pause, yet the underlying driver — locked-up supply — shows no sign of easing.

The rally is reshaping the broader Korean market. Samsung and SK Hynix together now account for 51.5 percent of the KOSPI200, up from 38.7 percent at the start of the year — a 12.8 percentage-point jump that highlights the index’s growing dependence on two chip bellwethers. The KOSPI itself climbed 1.75 percent on Thursday, and KB Securities has raised its year-end target for the index by 40 percent to 10,500 points, in large part reflecting the chip sector’s momentum.

Analysts point to a potent mix of record earnings expectations and the fear of missing the AI hardware cycle. Fabien Yip at IG in Sydney attributes the surge to what he calls “FOMO” — a sentiment that has lifted not only SK Hynix but also AI-linked names across Japan and South Korea. UBS has lifted its price target to 1.7 million won from 1.55 million, while SK Securities notes that on a trailing 12-month view the forward P/E stands at roughly 5.2, still modest by historical standards despite the recent explosion.

Yet the speed of the ascent carries its own risks. The relative strength index sits at 68.9, indicating stretched technical conditions that are not necessarily a reversal signal but leave little room for disappointment. Any miss on delivery volumes, margins or customer orders could trigger sharp profit-taking. Meanwhile, Samsung remains a formidable challenger in the next HBM cycle: if it achieves mass production of HBM4 in the second half of 2026, SK Hynix’s market share could slip back to 50–60 percent. New capacity at Cheongju and Yongin is not expected online until mid-2027.

Until then, the market’s attention will fix on two variables: whether the Samsung strike materialises and how deep its impact runs, and whether SK Hynix can sustain its delivery credibility on HBM. If both conditions hold, the road to $1 trillion remains open. If the strike fizzles or supply loosens, the focus will shift back to just how fast valuations have climbed. Either way, the old pecking order in Korean memory has been turned upside down.