SK hynix's market capitalization has surpassed the entire KOSDAQ market. As expectations for earnings surge on exploding demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips drive the stock, it is locked in a fierce contest over market cap ranking with global rival Micron Technology of the United States.
According to the Korea Exchange (KRX) on the 7th, SK hynix closed at 726,000 won, up 4.31% (30,000 won) from the previous trading day. The share price soared intraday to 727,000 won, setting an all-time high. Fueled by the sharp rise, SK hynix's market capitalization swelled in a day from 506 trillion won to 528 trillion won, an increase of about 22 trillion won. Having stood around 473 trillion won at the end of last year, the market cap settled above the 500 trillion won mark as the rally accelerated at the start of the year.
In particular, SK hynix's market cap has exceeded the entire KOSDAQ market cap (521 trillion won as of the 6th). Even as the overall market has grown, a single SK hynix listing has outweighed the whole of KOSDAQ.
Competition in market capitalization between SK hynix and Micron for the No. 2 spot in the global memory chip market is heating up. Since last June, when SK hynix topped 200 trillion won in market cap and overtook Micron, the two have traded places depending on earnings and exchange rates.
Recently, both companies have staged record-setting rallies, expanding their market caps in tandem. On the 6th (local time), Micron hit an all-time intraday high of $344.55, lifting its market cap to about $386.5 billion (about 560 trillion won). On the same day, SK hynix, which notched a record high (726,000 won), also expanded its market cap to around 528 trillion won, putting the gap between the two at roughly 40 trillion won.
The market expects SK hynix to achieve 10 trillion won in operating profit this year. With AI infrastructure expanding, demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM) and DRAM is surging, and a price-raising "super cycle" is expected to continue.
Meanwhile, SK hynix stoked investor sentiment the previous day at "CES 2026" in the United States by unveiling HBM4 16-stack 48 gigabytes (GB), a next-generation product, for the first time. In addition, as the Korea Exchange (KRX) recently decided to exclude stocks within the top 100 by market cap from "investment warning" designation, concerns about trading restrictions due to rapid price gains have eased, improving supply-demand conditions.
Experts said the semiconductor cycle is moving beyond simple inventory restocking into an overordering phase, and that in the short term, a peak could continue to form.
Lee Euntaek, an analyst at KB Securities, said, "In the past, when the inventory replenishment cycle turned, share prices fell in tandem, but now, as competition to secure inventory intensifies, the cycle is shifting to an 'overordering cycle,'" and added, "Within the first quarter of this year, the market will show a move toward the peak of the bubble."