SK Hynix가 강한 HBM 수요와 안정적인 DDR5 마진 속에 $29.4 billion Nasdaq 상장, 시장 지위 강화

On Thursday, SK Hynix shares surged more than 13 percent, closing within striking distance of their 52-week high. The immediate catalyst came from US memory giant Micron, which delivered quarterly results that sent shockwaves through the semiconductor space. But the rally is also anchored in a far bigger story: SK Hynix is preparing to raise up to $29.4 billion through American Depositary Receipts on the Nasdaq, a move that would fund the next phase of its capacity expansion.

Micron reported third-fiscal-quarter revenue of $41.46 billion—more than quadruple the $9.30 billion recorded in the same period last year—and adjusted earnings per share of $25.11. Its forecast for the current quarter was even more striking: revenue around $50 billion, a gross margin of roughly 86 percent, and adjusted EPS of $31.00. Those numbers recalibrated the entire memory market.

The effect in Seoul was immediate. SK Hynix rose as much as 11.1 percent in early trade before closing 13 percent higher, while Samsung Electronics added 5.3 percent. The message from Micron is that demand for AI-focused memory is running far ahead of supply; the company said customers have already committed $22 billion to secure capacity, enabling suppliers to command premium pricing.

SK Hynix is widely seen as one of the biggest beneficiaries of this cycle, especially in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) segment essential for Nvidia's AI accelerators. The stock now sits at 2,917,000 KRW, just 2.34 percent below its all-time high. Since the start of the year, it has roughly sextupled from an October 2025 low of 491,500 KRW, posting a year-to-date gain of about 336 percent. At one point SK Hynix briefly surpassed Samsung to become the most valuable publicly traded company in South Korea, with a market capitalization approaching $1 trillion.

Yet even as it cashes in on the AI memory boom, the company is making a tactical shift in its product roadmap. Rather than aggressively ramping up next-generation HBM4 production, SK Hynix is prioritizing conventional DDR5 memory, where analysts expect gross margins of up to 90 percent this year amid acute supply tightness in the standard-DRAM market. The pivot underscores a pragmatic bet: the immediate profit pool in DDR5 may be too lucrative to ignore, even as the company continues to develop HBM4E samples—a 12-layer design with improved power efficiency—for future generations.

The Nasdaq listing, which is slated to begin trading on July 10, is designed to raise the capital needed to bring that strategy to life. Proceeds will go toward building new fabrication space, expanding packaging facilities in Cheongju, and acquiring EUV lithography tools. All of it is aimed at boosting output of high-bandwidth memory, though the new capacity is not expected to come online until 2027 at the earliest.

For now, the stock is running hot. The 14-day relative strength index stands at 68.1, just below the overbought threshold, while annualized 30-day volatility has soared to 104.53 percent. The rally has already priced in a great deal of optimism, and the big unknown is whether Micron's $50 billion revenue forecast—and the pricing power it implies—can hold. SK Hynix's next chapter will be written both in its quarterly earnings and on the Nasdaq floor, where investors are being asked to buy into a long-term bet that may not bear fruit for years.