SK Hynix Inc. (KRX: 000660) kicked off its formal US listing marketing process on Monday, as the South Korean memory chipmaker moves to capitalize on surging investor appetite for AI-driven semiconductor stocks.
The company is seeking to sell American depositary receipts representing approximately 17.79 million common shares, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The offering is valued at around $28 billion based on Friday’s closing price in Seoul, which would place it among the top three first-time share sales in history.
SK Hynix’s Seoul-traded stock has rallied approximately 260% this year, propelling the company’s total market capitalization above $1 trillion ahead of the US listing.
The ADR sale would rival Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion debut in 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, making it the biggest-ever US listing by a foreign company.
The company expects the ADRs to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol SKHY on July 10, per an earlier regulatory filing.
SK Hynix controls 57% of the global high-bandwidth memory market share by revenue as of the fourth quarter of 2025, according to data from Counterpoint Research, cementing its position as the world’s leading HBM supplier.
The firm’s early embrace of HBM technology made it the go-to provider for Nvidia Corp., delivering massive profits while rival Samsung Electronics Co. was slower to respond to the AI-driven demand surge.
SK Hynix reported record operating profit for the first quarter of 37.61 trillion won, well above the analyst consensus estimate of 35.7 trillion won, while sales nearly tripled to 52.58 trillion won.
SK Hynix and Samsung are both poised to ramp up US investment as part of a South Korean government-led initiative valued at $880 billion, deepening their footprint in the American market.
The US listing opens a powerful fundraising channel as companies including Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have already hiked prices on products such as Xbox consoles, Macs, and iPads, blaming an unprecedented shortage of memory chips driven by the AI boom.
Memory and storage companies now comprise the top four stocks in the S&P 500 Index this year, reflecting a broader investor view that AI demand represents a secular, rather than cyclical, growth story for the sector.
The SK Hynix offering joins a wave of major tech listings tapping US capital markets, following SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO in June and Alphabet Inc.’s planned $85 billion raise to fund its own AI ambitions.
The offering is being led by Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to the SEC filing.
