Supply Squeeze Pushes SK Hynix Past $1 Trillion and Into the U.S. Market

SK Hynix shares surge 349% from trough as DRAM prices rise 184% and NAND 231%; ADR listing targets June/July 2026 with up to $14.4B raise.

The memory-chip shortage has turned into the defining force behind SK Hynix’s staggering rally — and its next strategic move. The South Korean manufacturer is planning to list American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) in New York in June or July 2026, targeting a capital raise of $9.6 billion to $14.4 billion. The listing comes as the stock has already priced in a supply deficit that analysts see persisting deep into 2028.

Shares hit an all-time high of 2,289,000 won on May 28, 2026 — a 349% recovery from the trough in October 2025 and a year?to?date gain of 233.53%. On the day of the biggest intraday move, the stock surged as much as 14.9% before closing 9.3% higher, pushing the company’s market capitalisation past $1.12 trillion. The closing price that session was 2,243,000 won; a day later it set a fresh 52?week high of 2,258,000 won.

DRAM and NAND Prices Reset the Cycle

The engine behind the rally is a brutal re?pricing of memory. The average selling price of DRAM is expected to rise 184% this year, while NAND flash is forecast to jump 231% — numbers that go far beyond normal cyclical swings. In the first quarter of 2026, SK Hynix’s memory prices roughly doubled compared with the prior period, and analysts project another 63% increase in the current quarter.

Revenue for the first quarter hit 52.58 trillion won, a year?on?year surge of 198%. The operating margin reached 72%, producing operating profit of 37.61 trillion won. A single product metric underscores the trend: the price of a 32GB DDR5 RDIMM module has climbed from $113 in June 2025 to roughly $1,200 in May 2026 — a ten?fold increase in twelve months.

The Nvidia Connection Consumes Supply

High?bandwidth memory remains the tightest bottleneck. Roughly 70% of SK Hynix’s HBM4 allocation is already reserved for Nvidia’s “Vera Rubin” platform. The company holds an estimated 54% to 62% share of the broader HBM market, while its overall DRAM share stands at 29.6%, trailing Samsung’s 40.5% but ahead of Micron’s 19.9%.

To scale production, SK Hynix has placed orders with ASML for equipment worth about 11.95 trillion won, including roughly 30 EUV lithography machines. Mirae Asset Securities, which recently raised its price target from 3.2 million won to 3.8 million won — an 18.8% lift — argues that the supply?demand imbalance in the semiconductor industry could persist until 2028. Analyst Kim Young?gun points to the structural demand from AI data centres absorbing high?grade memory while legacy end?markets such as smartphones and PCs compete for leftover capacity.

Cooling Tech for the Next Generation

Alongside the price frenzy, SK Hynix is preparing the technology for the next wave. On May 26, 2026, it unveiled an integrated cooling solution, dubbed iHBM, designed for future HBM packages. The system uses embedded cooling elements within the package itself, cutting thermal resistance by 30%. Deployment is planned from the HBM5 generation onward.

SK Hynix’s own management expects chip demand to outstrip supply for the next three years, with HBM at the centre of the narrative. That conviction is reinforced by the broader market: the KOSPI index hit a record 8,457.09 points on May 28, with SK Hynix and Samsung together accounting for roughly half of the index’s total capitalisation.

Retail Risk Appetite Meets Institutional Caution

A wave of retail money has amplified the move. In the United States, fresh inflows into a new ETF that holds Samsung and SK Hynix have added fuel. In South Korea, the first leveraged single?stock ETFs on both names posted double?digit gains on their debut. Local financial investors bought a net 1.3 trillion won of shares on the Korean exchange, while foreign investors were net sellers — a pattern that suggests the rally is driven as much by domestic momentum as by the underlying fundamental story.

Technically, the stock now trades roughly 70% above its 50?day moving average, and the relative strength index sits at 68.9 — strong momentum, but a level that leaves little room for disappointment. The next real test will be whether memory prices hold their knife?edge scarcity through the coming quarters. If they do, the new price targets look plausible. If the pressure eases, a stock that has already factored in years of scarcity could face a sharp recalibration.