SK hynix passes Samsung as South Korea's most valuable company — memory company surpasses valuation milestone on the back of HBM - Tom's Hardware

SK Hynix overtook Samsung Electronics to become South Korea's most valuable listed company, marking the first time since 2000 that Samsung has lost the top spot on the KOSPI index. This shift is prima... Read original →

SK hynix overtaking Samsung marks a paradigm shift driven by AI's hardware demands. Its HBM dominance is reshaping the tech stack: upstream, it intensifies competition for EUV and TSV capacity; downstream, NVIDIA must now treat HBM supply as integral to GPU architecture. Samsung’s HBM3E yield issues reveal structural inflexibility in its IDM model. Geopolitically, U.S. and EU efforts to onshore advanced packaging will raise compliance costs, yet SK hynix benefits from tight integration with Intel’s EMIB and Taiwan, China’s OSAT ecosystem. Facing SK’s aggressive 38% HBM capacity expansion, Samsung may divest non-core memory units, while Micron could leverage the HBM4E standardization window to rally U.S. equipment partners for a technical counteroffensive. Within 18 months, HBM will evolve from an accelerator add-on to the defining element of AI chip value—and pricing power.