A stock price for Hynix that appeared in a sitcom 23 years ago is trending online.
On the 18th, an online community spread a scene from the SBS sitcom "Live Straight," which aired in 2002–2003. In the scene, characters check stock quotes on a computer screen, where Hynix's share price was shown as 460 won.
At the time, Hynix was struggling with management difficulties due to the fallout from the foreign exchange crisis and a slump in the semiconductor market. Hyundai Electronics, the predecessor of Hynix, entered a workout in 2001 and later changed its name to Hynix after leaving only the semiconductor business.
In 2012, the company was incorporated into SK Group and became SK hynix. Recently, it has been cited as a prime beneficiary of surging demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) driven by the spread of artificial intelligence (AI), sending the share price sharply higher. On the 15th, it even rose intraday to 1,995,000 won.
Online, some calculated that "if you had bought Hynix at 460 won, your current return would be about 400,000%." If you had bought 100 shares for 46,000 won at the time and held them until now, the valuation would be about 200 million won.
Meanwhile, Japan's Nomura Securities recently raised its target price for SK hynix to 4 million won from 2.34 million won in a report. This is the first time a target price for SK hynix has been presented in the 4 million won range.
Nomura Securities said the memory semiconductor industry is being reevaluated as a structural growth sector beyond a cyclical stock. It noted that, with expanding AI demand, memory demand has also entered a long-term growth phase.