SK Hynix heads to Nasdaq: Should Indian investors choose it over Micron? Which is the better long-term bet?
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- SK Hynix will list American depositary receipts on Nasdaq next month in a deal the SEC filing shows could raise more than $29 billion, with proceeds earmarked for new Korean production facilities including the Yongin campus and additional EUV equipment from ASML.
- SK Hynix commands roughly 60% of the global HBM market and remains Nvidia's primary supplier, with stocks having surged about 900% in the past year versus Micron's 850% and Samsung's 500%, per the report.
- Micron posted fiscal Q3 2026 revenue of $41.46 billion, up 346% year-on-year, with gross margins crossing 81% for the first time; its entire 2026 HBM output is sold out and the company says it can fulfill only half to two-thirds of customer demand.
- HBM market is projected to grow from $35 billion in 2025 to nearly $100 billion by 2028, and SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron have already booked out 2026 HBM supply, per Qode Advisors' Rishabh Nahar.
- SK Hynix is the first of the three to begin testing next-generation HBM4E chips and still trades at a lower valuation than Micron, a gap Nahar expects could narrow after the Nasdaq listing.
- The Nasdaq debut shifts the question for Indian investors from "SK Hynix or Micron?" to broader AI-memory access: Wright Research's Sonam Srivastava says both can be held, while Viram Shah argues the listing simply makes the whole theme buyable from India via US-dollar brokerage accounts for the first time.
- Both analysts flag 2027-2028 as the real risk window if all three memory makers bring new fabs online in parallel, with supply discipline the key swing factor on prices through the next downturn.
Why it matters: SK Hynix's $29 billion Nasdaq ADR raise — the largest foreign listing of the year — gives US investors direct access to the dominant supplier of Nvidia's HBM chips while funding new Korean fab capacity that won't hit the market for years, meaning near-term competition with Micron stays muted even as both stocks trade at AI-infrastructure valuations built on a $100 billion 2028 HBM market.
