By Jiemian
Storage chips are still the “hard currency” of the global capital market.
On May 11, the South Korean stock market saw a surge in the semiconductor sector, with SK Hynix’s stock price rising by 12% to 1.888 million won, refreshing its historical high and pushing its market value above $90 billion. Another storage giant, Samsung Electronics, also saw its stock price rise by 5.96% to 284,500 won, also hitting a historical high.
Last weekend, the US stock market sent a strong signal, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rising by 5.5% in a single day. Intel’s stock price soared by 13.96%, while Micron Technology’s stock price rose by 15.49%, making the storage chip sector the core driving force behind the tech stock rally.
In the A-share market, the ETF of Kechuang Chip, managed by Huatai-PineBridge, surged by over 4% at the opening, with a strong influx of funds exceeding 45 million yuan in the previous trading day. The constituent stocks of Huatai-PineBridge’s target index also rose sharply, with Lanqi Technology rising by over 11%, Haitong Information and Baishi Storage rising by over 4%, and SMIC and Xinyuan Shares rising by over 2%. Cambricon also rose strongly.
The core logic supporting the sector’s strength is the epic rise in storage chip prices and the widening supply-demand gap. According to data from TrendForce, the contract price of general-purpose DRAM rose by 90-95% in the first quarter of 2026, and is expected to continue to rise by 58-63% in the second quarter. The contract price of NAND flash memory rose by 55-60% in the first quarter, and is expected to rise by 70-75% in the second quarter.
Micron’s Chief Business Officer, Sumit Sadana, once said that a standard AI server requires 8 times more DRAM and 3 times more NAND than a regular server. According to a recent report by Citigroup, 66% of the world’s DRAM production capacity will be occupied by AI servers in 2026. Moreover, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta have increased their AI-related capital expenditures to $725 billion in 2026, a 77% increase from the $410 billion record set in 2025, further locking in massive storage chip orders.
On the supply side, the situation continues to tighten, with SK Hynix’s latest financial report revealing that the company’s inventory is only about 4 weeks, and products are “shipped immediately after production, with almost no inventory accumulation space”. The global wafer factory utilization rate has risen to over 90%, with some production lines operating at full capacity. According to a report by Goldman Sachs, the supply-demand gap for DRAM, NAND, and HBM (High-Bandwidth Memory) will be 4.9%, 4.2%, and 5.1% respectively in 2026, and this shortage is expected to continue until 2027. UBS has defined the current cycle as a “once-in-30-years” super cycle for storage.
The surge in industry prosperity is directly reflected in corporate earnings. SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics’ recent financial reports have both shown explosive growth. SK Hynix’s revenue for 2025 reached 97.15 trillion won, a 47% increase from the previous year, and its operating profit reached 47.21 trillion won, surpassing Samsung Electronics for the first time and becoming the new profit leader in the global storage chip industry.
SK Hynix’s first-quarter earnings for 2026 were even more impressive, with an operating profit of 37.61 trillion won, a 405% increase from the previous year, and an operating profit margin of 72%, exceeding the peak period of NVIDIA.
The explosive growth in corporate earnings has also benefited employees, with SK Hynix becoming a “golden sign” in the Korean matchmaking market. Previously, it was reported that based on Macquarie Securities’ forecast, if SK Hynix’s operating profit reaches 4.47 trillion won in 2027, the average bonus per employee will be around 6.1 million yuan, calculated based on 10% of the operating profit and 35,000 employees.
This news sparked heated discussion. Gayeon, a high-end matchmaking company, said that since the start of the semiconductor super cycle, the popularity of companies like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix has continued to rise, and the market prefers engineers with higher actual income. Netizens joked, “Now the most ideal matchmaking outfit is an SK Hynix work jacket”.
In response, SK Hynix said that since the annual performance for this year and next year has not been determined, the bonus scale cannot be predicted, but a new system has been established to allocate 10% of the operating profit as a performance bonus every year. According to the 2025 financial report, SK Hynix employees’ average annual bonus has already reached 1.42 billion won (approximately 691,300 yuan), a historical high.
Samsung Electronics also performed impressively, achieving record-breaking operating profits and sales in the fourth quarter of 2025, and a 756% increase in operating profit in the first quarter of 2026, with profits for a single quarter exceeding the entire year of 2025.
The core growth engine of both companies comes from high-end products. SK Hynix is currently the only company in the world that can stably supply both HBM3E and HBM4, with HBM sales rising by more than 100% in 2025, and has already locked in production capacity for 2026 and is negotiating orders for 2027. It is also reported that Samsung plans to increase its HBM monthly production capacity from 170,000 pieces to 250,000 pieces by the end of 2026, with HBM4 shipments rising by 300%.
The capital market’s optimism towards the storage chip sector also comes from the significant undervaluation of the industry, which is expected to be corrected. Despite the stock price having risen by 2-3 times since August 2025, the forward price-to-earnings ratio of Samsung and SK Hynix is less than 6 times, far lower than the 20 times of TSMC and 22 times of NVIDIA.
Analysts generally believe that the long-term protocol has locked in a large amount of high-end production capacity, significantly improving the profitability and stability of storage companies. The industry’s valuation logic is shifting from cyclical stocks to growth stocks. As the market recognizes the core infrastructure status of storage chips in the AI era, the valuation of the two companies is expected to approach that of TSMC and NVIDIA.
