SK Group crosses ₩2,000 trillion, and the milestone is almost entirely SK Hynix
SK Group — South Korea's second-largest conglomerate by market value, anchored by memory-chip maker SK Hynix — saw the combined market capitalization of its listed affiliates pass ₩2,000 trillion ($1.47 trillion at ₩1,370/$) on June 16, a first for the group. The Korea Exchange (KRX, Korea's main stock-market operator) put the intraday total for SK's 19 listed companies at ₩2,015.9350 trillion as of 2:34 p.m., per Asia Business Daily; at the close, including preferred shares, Seoul Economic Daily reported the figure at ₩2,020.1712 trillion.
For a fund manager, the headline number is less interesting than what sits inside it. SK Hynix (000660.KS) alone accounted for ₩1,688.7483 trillion (about $1.23 trillion in USD terms), or 83.77% of the group total, according to Asia Business Daily. The second-largest contributor, holding company SK Square, added another 9.8%, Seoul Economic Daily reported — but SK Square's principal asset is its roughly 20% stake in SK Hynix, which SK Securities notes makes it SK Hynix's largest shareholder. Directly and indirectly, then, well over 90% of the group's ₩2,000 trillion is a wager on a single memory franchise.
Why one stock now defines the group
The concentration is the product of an extraordinary year for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the stacked DRAM that feeds AI accelerators. SK Hynix crossed $1 trillion in market value for the first time on May 27, joining the small club of memory makers to do so, Seoul Economic Daily and MLQ News reported. In the first quarter of 2026 the company posted revenue of ₩52.6 trillion ($38.4 billion) — its first quarter above ₩50 trillion — and operating profit of ₩37.6 trillion ($27.4 billion), a 72% operating margin, per its earnings disclosure cited in 2026 market coverage. The same disclosure stated that customer HBM orders already exceed the company's planned production capacity for the next three years.
That single-stock gravity is why the rally has lifted the holding company in lockstep. SK Square closed at a record ₩1,501,000 ($1,096), up 6.23%, on June 16, Seoul Economic Daily reported. SK Hynix itself closed up 4.11% at ₩2,382,000 ($1,739), according to etnews. Separately, SK Securities raised its target price on SK Square to ₩1,850,000 ($1,350) from ₩1,450,000 ($1,058) while maintaining a buy rating, framing the move around expectations that wider SK Hynix dividends would expand SK Square's own shareholder returns, per Aju Business Daily. (Target prices are analyst estimates, not recommendations.)
How fast this happened, and against what benchmark
The pace is the striking part. Seoul Economic Daily reported SK Group's combined value stood at ₩601.4086 trillion ($439 billion) at the end of last year, meaning the group's market cap has grown roughly 236% in under six months. The group had only crossed ₩1,000 trillion in April 2026, on the same Hynix rally — so the move from ₩1,000 trillion to ₩2,000 trillion took about two months.
The benchmark is Samsung Group, Korea's largest conglomerate. Samsung Electronics — the group's flagship — itself first crossed ₩2,000 trillion in combined common + preferred market value on May 27, 2026, per Seoul Economic Daily. At the June 16 close Samsung Group stood at ₩2,724.6714 trillion ($1.99 trillion), leaving SK at roughly three-quarters of Samsung's value, Seoul Economic Daily reported. On these figures SK Group now amounts to about a quarter (roughly 26%) of the entire Korean stock market's capitalization — meaning roughly a quarter of Korea's listed equity value is concentrated in one group whose value is, in turn, concentrated in one chipmaker.
The open question
The milestone is a measure of how completely the AI-memory cycle has reshaped Korea's index, but it also sharpens the dependency: if HBM pricing or volumes turn, the same leverage that drove a 236% surge works in reverse across the group and the holding-company complex tied to it. The next hard read on whether the valuation is supported by fundamentals will be SK Hynix's second-quarter 2026 results, which will show whether HBM average selling prices and shipment volumes held through the period — the data point that confirms or undercuts the premium now embedded across SK's listed affiliates.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Figures are drawn from cited Korea Exchange data and news reports; currency conversions use an approximate rate of ₩1,370 per U.S. dollar and are indicative only.
