SK Hynix (000660.KS) shares jumped more than 12% on Wednesday, pushing the memory chip maker to a $1 trillion valuation in Asia just hours after peer Micron Technology (MU) crossed the same milestone on Tuesday.
Wall Street had anticipated SK Hynix would join the club as the last of the industry’s “big three” to reach the valuation after Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) first crossed the mark earlier this month .
May has become a month of trillion-dollar milestones for the memory chip giants, as soaring demand has tightened supply and created a key bottleneck in the AI trade.
SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung have become major beneficiaries of the AI boom as demand for High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) chips has surged alongside AI training and inference workloads. Their production is allocated through 2026.
On Tuesday, Wedbush Securities managing director Dan Ives explained why he added SK Hynix to his IVES exchange-traded fund (ETF).
“When you look at what SK’s doing … they’re going to be part of this memory super cycle coming out,” Ives said. “They’re in the winner’s circle.”
SK Hynix shares have surged more than 248% year to date, while Samsung Electronics has gained about 165% and Micron is up more than 210%.
Yahoo Finance’s Jared Blikre noted on Tuesday, Micron is now the 11th-largest US public company. The stock has also emerged as a key driver of this year’s semiconductor rally, helping propel the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) to record highs.
UBS more than tripled its price target on the memory maker to a Street-high $1,625, arguing that AI has structurally changed the market for memory chips.
