South Korean chip big SK hynix began buying and selling on Wall Road on Friday (Jul 10) after one of the world’s largest share sales.
Its debut marks the biggest US itemizing by a overseas firm, underscoring sturdy investor urge for food for corporations on the centre of the unreal intelligence increase.
However SK hynix’s rise to the highest of the semiconductor business was something however easy.
In one of many greatest turnarounds in South Korea’s company historical past, the corporate has rebounded from the brink of collapse to turn out to be one of many world’s most useful semiconductor corporations at the moment.
FROM CRISIS TO COMEBACK
Based in 1983 as Hyundai Electronics, the corporate went via a collection of crises and possession modifications earlier than finally changing into SK hynix.
It got here near chapter in 2001 as international chip costs plunged, surviving solely after a bailout by creditor banks, led by state lenders.
Later, burdened by debt following aggressive growth, it was at one level practically offered to US-based Micron. The deal fell via, leaving the agency beneath creditor management for practically a decade.
By 2003, its shares plunged to as little as 135 gained (US$0.09), incomes it the label of a penny inventory in South Korea.
A turning level got here in 2012, when telecoms conglomerate SK Group acquired the corporate and renamed it SK hynix.
The acquisition was extensively seen as dangerous on the time, with Samsung valued at greater than 10 occasions its measurement. However it laid the inspiration for SK hynix’s eventual rise.
However the deal laid the inspiration for SK hynix’s eventual rise.
Reasonably than competing head-on with Samsung in standard reminiscence chips, SK hynix centered on carving out an edge.
It positioned an early guess on high-bandwidth reminiscence chips (HBM) – a then-niche expertise designed to course of information at a lot quicker speeds however was not extensively utilized by information centre clients.
“We believed that it could be unimaginable to beat Samsung in commodity Dynamic Random-Entry Reminiscence (DRAM) merchandise,” former SK hynix HR government Hyun Solar-yeop stated.
“We had been determined to alter the market dynamics. We wanted a breakthrough.”
That breakthrough got here within the type of HBM chips, which might later show crucial to AI computing.
They helped SK hynix recuperate from the worldwide reminiscence business’s boom-and-bust cycle a lot quicker than Samsung, and soar to record profits.
It even overtook Samsung because the world’s high DRAM maker in 2025.
“Nobody would ever have imagined that SK hynix would overtake Samsung,” stated Shin Jae-yong, a enterprise administration professor at Seoul Nationwide College.
“It’s virtually unimaginable for a runner-up to meet up with the market chief on this capital-intensive business, which requires huge funding. HBM was the highly effective driver behind how they turned the tables.”
