SK Hynix dethrones Samsung Electronics as South Korea's most valuable company - Yahoo Finance

On June 22, 2026, SK Hynix, a South Korean chipmaker, briefly surpassed Samsung Electronics in market value to become the most valuable company in the country. This shift marks a significant change in... Read original →

SK Hynix’s brief market cap lead over Samsung isn’t just an AI demand story—it signals a tectonic shift in memory architecture. HBM3E/HBM4 has become the linchpin of AI data centers, and SK Hynix’s tight integration with NVIDIA and Microsoft, backed by superior TSV and 3D stacking yields, has created a technical moat. Samsung now faces pressure to accelerate its own CoWoS-like advanced packaging roadmap. However, U.S. export controls on bonding and hybrid bonding tools threaten to inflate non-Korean expansion costs. In response, Samsung may double down on its Xi’an DRAM fab or deepen partnerships in Taiwan, China and Malaysia, while Micron leverages CHIPS Act subsidies to scale Arizona-based HBM output. Over the next 18 months, HBM scarcity will sustain premium margins—but the rise of CPO (co-packaged optics) could render today’s 2.5D/3D HBM stacks obsolete. The ultimate edge will go to firms mastering optical I/O and compute-in-memory convergence.