SK Hynix Crosses $1.1 Trillion as Samsung’s HBM4E Moves Shift the Narrative

SK Hynix reaches $1.10T market cap on 400% profit surge, but Samsung's faster HBM4E samples and institutional selling create headwinds. Retail bets hit 2 trillion won.

SK Hynix stormed into the trillion-dollar club on Friday, reaching a market capitalisation of $1.10 trillion — a threshold only 16 other companies have ever crossed. Yet even as the South Korean chipmaker basked in its record valuation, a rival’s quiet sample delivery began redefining the competitive landscape for the next generation of AI memory.

Samsung Electronics confirmed it had shipped its first 12-layer HBM4E samples to major customers, with chips running at up to 16 Gbps and delivering 3.6 TB/s of bandwidth per stack — more than 20% faster than current HBM4 technology. The announcement landed on the very day SK Hynix’s stock closed at 2.33 million won, marking a 1.92% gain and a 245% advance since the start of the year. The KOSPI index also hit an all-time high of 8,476.15 points, rising 3.55%.

The retail crowd had already stampeded into leveraged single-stock ETFs in the first 45 minutes of trading, channeling nearly 2 trillion won into Korean semiconductor products. The KODEX SK Hynix Leverage ETF saw 780 billion won in volume, while the TIGER version clocked 520 billion won. Intraday, the underlying stock surged as much as 11% to 2.279 million won before settling at the close.

But the rally has created an unusual drag: institutional funds constrained by a 10% single-position limit have been forced to trim their SK Hynix holdings despite bullish fundamentals. Goldman Sachs noted that such mandatory selling has contributed to net capital outflows from the Korean market since late 2025, even as indices climb.

HBM Dominance Meets the Next Gear

The financials underpin the newfound market cap. In the first quarter of 2026, SK Hynix reported operating profit of 37.6 trillion won — a 400% year-on-year surge — on revenue of 52.6 trillion won, up 200%. The operating margin hit 72%, a reflection of extraordinary pricing power in the high-bandwidth memory segment, where the company held a 57% global market share in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Counterpoint Research. Samsung and Micron trailed at 22% and 21%, respectively.

That pricing power is already being tested. HBM prices doubled in the first quarter, and analysts project another 63% rise in the second quarter. SK Hynix’s HBM capacity is sold out through the end of 2026. Yet Samsung’s early HBM4E samples present a clear challenge: SK Hynix has said its own HBM4E samples will not arrive until the second half of 2026, with mass production scheduled for 2027. Samsung plans to start volume production after customer qualification, giving it a calendar lead — though sample shipments do not guarantee volume orders or pricing authority.

Strategic Bets Beyond the Balance Sheet

To cement its position in the AI supply chain, SK Hynix recently participated in the $65 billion Series H funding round of Anthropic, the developer of the Claude AI model. The investment, which valued Anthropic at $965 billion, aims to secure SK Hynix as the primary HBM supplier for Anthropic’s expanding data-centre infrastructure.

The stakes are high. Whatever margins SK Hynix commands in the current cycle will depend on whether it can replicate its HBM3E dominance in the HBM4E era. Samsung’s sample delivery has set a visible benchmark, and the qualification battles with major AI-chip customers — focused on bandwidth, energy efficiency, and thermal management — will determine who sets prices in the next acceleration cycle. For now, SK Hynix carries a $1.1 trillion valuation into that race, but the finish line keeps moving.