According to reports citing sources familiar with the matter, the South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix is planning to list in the United States as early as August this year. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to approve its American Depositary Receipt (ADR) listing application during the week of June 22. As the global leader in HBM, which is deeply integrated into Nvidia's AI computing power supply chain, the company aims to open a financing channel for its massive capital expenditures through a U.S. listing while also seeking to break free from the long-standing "valuation discount" that has plagued South Korean companies.
SK Hynix confirmed in a statement: "SK Hynix plans to issue ADRs within 2026, but specific details such as scale and timing have not been finalized." This target timeline is significantly earlier than the previous "within the year" statement, with a proposed fundraising of approximately $10 billion. This could become one of the largest U.S. listings by a foreign company in recent years.
Underwriters Assembled, Targeting August Listing
In March of this year, SK Hynix confidentially submitted a registration statement to the SEC for its ADR listing, but at that time, the company indicated the specific schedule was not yet determined. The latest information shows that the underwriter team has now clearly targeted June to July as the listing window, significantly advancing the timeline from previous vague statements and indicating the company is progressing its U.S. listing at a faster-than-expected pace.
Investment banking sources revealed that "even if the stock price falls, the ADR listing schedule will not change. The company's determination to enter the U.S. market is far more important than timing." For the underwriting syndicate, SK Hynix has appointed Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America as underwriters for the U.S. listing plan, forming a prestigious team. The investment banking industry expects the new share issuance to be around $10 billion. If successful, it would be one of the largest U.S. listings by a foreign company in recent years.
The Chairman of SK Group has previously stated clearly that a U.S. listing would help expand SK Hynix's shareholder base beyond South Korea, increase exposure to U.S. and international investors, and strengthen its global influence.
HBM Leader's Soaring Performance, Annual Profit Surpasses Samsung for First Time
SK Hynix is one of the absolute leaders in the global memory chip market, holding a near-monopoly position in HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), a core segment of the AI computing power race. Financial report data shows that for the 2025 fiscal year, SK Hynix achieved annual revenue of 97.15 trillion won (approximately 472.1 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 47%. Operating profit reached 47.21 trillion won, doubling with a 101% increase year-on-year. Revenue, operating profit, and net profit all hit record highs.
More importantly, SK Hynix's full-year 2025 operating profit surpassed that of the long-time leader, Samsung Electronics, for the first time, marking a historic shift in the competitive landscape of South Korea's semiconductor industry. HBM has become the core driver of SK Hynix's performance surge. In 2025, the company's HBM sales more than doubled year-on-year, accounting for 42% of total revenue, with the single product contributing over 19 trillion won (approximately 92.3 billion yuan) in operating profit.
Counterpoint Research estimates that SK Hynix held a revenue share as high as 57% in the HBM market in the third quarter of 2025, while its main competitor Samsung had only 22%, and Micron Technology held an even smaller share. According to local media reports, SK Hynix has secured over two-thirds of the HBM supply orders for Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin products, deeply locking in the incremental benefits of the AI computing wave.
Competition in the HBM market is intensifying. Samsung Electronics has announced it will begin supplying HBM4 chips to Nvidia starting in February 2026, having passed final quality certification tests, aiming to narrow the gap with SK Hynix in the new generation product. Samsung once fell behind in the HBM3E competition, failing to pass Nvidia's certification for the fifth-generation HBM3E, but is actively mounting a counterattack in the HBM4 field.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently explicitly stated that all three major memory chip manufacturers—SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics, and Micron Technology—are qualified to supply HBM4 chips, meaning all three companies are about to begin mass production and supply of the new generation HBM products. Analysts expect SK Hynix to maintain a high share and dominant position in the HBM4 market, but Samsung is expected to make substantial progress with the new generation product. The HBM4 race will primarily unfold between SK Hynix and Samsung.
Simultaneously, the technological competition in HBM is extending from the battle over stacking layers and capacity to a new front centered on thermal management. SK Hynix has already released its iHBM solution, which integrates cooling elements directly into the package, and plans to adopt this architecture in next-generation products like HBM5.
An Attempt to Break the "Korea Discount"
One of the core logics behind SK Hynix's accelerated push for a U.S. listing is to narrow the valuation gap with its U.S. peers. This is both a demand stemming from its increased influence in the AI computing power supply chain and a key means to attract global capital attention. Although SK Hynix's stock price has risen approximately threefold over the past year, its valuation multiple remains significantly lower than that of U.S. counterparts.
According to a report by the Korean Herald Economy, based on this year's earnings expectations, the forward price-to-earnings ratio given by the securities industry for SK Hynix is only 3 to 4 times, while Micron Technology trades at 8 times, and SanDisk at 19 times. This valuation discount is not unique to SK Hynix. Samsung Electronics faces a similar dilemma—its net profit is expected to grow 400% this year, yet its forward P/E ratio is less than 6 times, compared to nearly 20 times for TSMC and as high as 22 times for Nvidia.
Bulls argue that AI-driven demand for memory has spread from HBM to general products like DRAM, and the memory industry is entering a new structural paradigm. Bears maintain that memory profitability has historically fluctuated significantly with the economic cycle, and low valuations are a reasonable pricing of this historical pattern. The investment banking industry further points out that even based on Bloomberg's forward earnings per share estimates, SK Hynix's expected P/E ratio is only 4 times—highlighting a significant valuation disparity with U.S. peers like Micron.
This disparity is referred to as the "Korea Discount," where South Korean companies face long-term valuation discounts compared to global peers due to factors like corporate governance transparency and geopolitical risks. Issuing ADRs in the U.S. market will help SK Hynix gain access to passive funds, ETFs, and long-term institutional capital that invest only in U.S. stocks, thereby achieving a deserved valuation re-rating.
There is precedent for South Korean companies using ADR issuances for valuation repair. Coupang's 2021 listing on the NYSE raised $4.6 billion, becoming one of the largest U.S. IPOs by an Asian company at the time. SK Hynix's potential fundraising could be more than double that of Coupang, potentially becoming another benchmark case of breaking through the valuation ceiling via a U.S. listing.
A New Variable in the AI Sector's Capital Wave
Behind SK Hynix's accelerated listing push is the company's massive capital expenditure plans. Its parent, SK Group, has formulated a long-term strategy to invest 600 trillion won in Yongin by 2050. In February of this year, SK Hynix decided to invest 21.6 trillion won by the end of 2030 to advance the construction of the first-phase wafer fab at the Yongin semiconductor cluster in Gyeonggi Province. Including facility investment announced in July 2024, the total scale reaches 31 trillion won.
Additionally, the company announced earlier this year it would establish an artificial intelligence solutions company in the United States, planning to invest up to $10 billion. Regarding financing tools, in January of this year, SK Hynix canceled almost all of its treasury shares, amounting to 12.24 trillion won, retaining only a portion for employee incentives. Consequently, a new share issuance has become the only feasible path for the U.S. listing.
SK Hynix's move to list in the U.S. coincides with a critical window where global AI companies are intensively accessing capital markets. OpenAI has confidentially filed for an IPO with a valuation exceeding $850 billion, aiming for a listing as early as the fourth quarter of this year. Its rival Anthropic has also confidentially submitted IPO documents, with its valuation having surged to $965 billion. Furthermore, Elon Musk's SpaceX is also advancing its IPO plans. Combined, these three AI giants could have a total valuation exceeding $3 trillion, with potential fundraising sizes approaching or even surpassing the total U.S. IPO market volume since 2022.
Goldman Sachs estimates that from 2026 to 2031, global investment in data centers, computing power, and electricity for the AI industry will total $7.6 trillion. As a core HBM supplier, a successful U.S. listing would grant SK Hynix stronger financing capabilities and greater influence with global capital. This would not only provide funding for astronomical capacity expansion but also create a new dynamic within the U.S. stock memory chip sector, directly pitting it against Micron and accelerating the reallocation of global capital within the AI computing power supply chain.
SK Hynix's path to a U.S. listing has reached a critical juncture, but several questions remain. Regarding the timing window, the progress of SEC approval and whether it can be granted as scheduled during the week of June 22 will directly determine if the August listing can proceed. On fundraising size, whether the preliminary $10 billion target can be maintained amidst market volatility remains to be seen, pending changes in the market environment. For valuation realization, the pricing that U.S. stock investors ultimately assign to SK Hynix post-ADR listing, and whether it can truly break through the "4 times P/E" valuation ceiling, will determine the strategic success of this listing.
For global investors, the listing of SK Hynix's ADS will, for the first time, provide a direct, institutionalized channel to participate in the world's largest HBM supplier. This AI computing power leader, with its attractive technological moat, market position, and shareholder returns, is presenting a new valuation answer to the global capital market through a U.S. listing.