SK Hynix’s Valuation Overtakes Samsung as the Race to $1 Trillion Nears Its Final Stretch

SK Hynix surpasses Samsung in forward earnings multiple for the first time, driven by AI memory demand and supply shortages, with market cap nearing $1 trillion.

For the first time in its history, SK Hynix has been assigned a higher forward earnings multiple than Samsung Electronics — a symbolic shift that underscores just how radically the memory chip landscape has been redrawn by artificial intelligence. The expected price-to-earnings ratio for 2026 now stands at 6.79, barely edging out Samsung’s 6.77. Three months ago, the gap was 2.80 points in Samsung’s favour.

The market capitalisation of SK Hynix hit roughly $948 billion on 13 May, putting South Korea on the cusp of becoming the first country outside the United States to host two companies with trillion-dollar valuations. Samsung Electronics already holds that distinction. The stock itself is trading around 1.97 million won, a fractional decline of 0.30% on the day after briefly crossing the 2.0 million won threshold in pre-market trading. From the start of the year, the gain exceeds 191%.

Behind the valuation crossover and the market-cap milestone lies a simple but powerful reality: SK Hynix has effectively sold out its entire output of DRAM, NAND and high-bandwidth memory (HBM). The company cannot satisfy all customer orders, and that scarcity is feeding directly into pricing power. Spot prices for 64-gigabit MLC NAND have tripled since the end of 2025, while global MLC-NAND capacity is forecast to shrink by more than 40% in 2026. Samsung’s decision to close its last 2D NAND line in Hwaseong and convert the facility to DRAM production only tightens the squeeze.

Goldman Sachs has revised its estimate for the DRAM supply gap upward from 3.3% to 4.9%, describing it as the most severe shortage in 15 years. SK Hynix, while trimming its own NAND wafer production slightly from 1.9 million to 1.7 million units, is well positioned to capture the upside. Analysts increasingly separate standard DRAM from high-margin HBM when valuing memory companies, and SK Hynix sits at the most constrained point of the AI server supply chain.

The market’s enthusiasm has translated into extraordinary inflows for a newly launched vehicle. The Roundhill Memory ETF pulled in more than $6 billion during its first month, with SK Hynix commanding a 26.9% weighting — the largest single position. Samsung follows at 23.4%. On one recent day, the fund attracted net inflows of nearly $1 billion, an exceptional figure for a product that has barely existed for weeks.

The rally has also minted a new class of corporate millionaires inside South Korea’s two chip giants. SK Hynix president Kwak Noh-jung saw the value of his shareholdings surge 861% over six months to about 28 billion won, overtaking Samsung president Roh Tae-moon as the highest-value non-owner executive in the country. Across both companies, 258 executives now hold stock worth more than 1 billion won, compared with just 31 in October 2025.

That concentration of wealth mirrors a growing concentration in the broader Korean market. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for 51.5% of the KOSPI200 index, up from 38.7% at the start of the year — a jump of 12.8 percentage points. The dependence on two semiconductor stocks makes the index powerful when both are rising, but vulnerable if sentiment turns.

Another factor fuelling the relative performance gap is the labour trouble at Samsung. Mediation talks have failed, raising the prospect of an 18-day strike that could disrupt customer relationships and supply chains. JPMorgan estimates that higher wages would shave 7% to 12% off Samsung’s operating profit. That drag helps explain why SK Hynix has been able to close the valuation gap so quickly.

Yet Samsung remains the most credible challenger in the next HBM cycle. If the company manages to start mass production of HBM4 in the second half of 2026, SK Hynix’s market share could slip from its current dominant position to between 50% and 60%. New fabrication lines in Cheongju and Yongin are not expected to come online until mid-2027. Until then, the sustainability of SK Hynix’s valuation premium hinges on whether the NAND and DRAM shortages persist through the end of the year. The relative strength index sits at around 69 — close to overbought territory but not yet there. Investors are wagering that the scarcity lasts long enough to carry SK Hynix past that final psychological barrier.