Market Cap Climbs to $625.5 Billion on April 28, Overtaking Exxon Mobil
SK Hynix’s stock price hit a new all-time high during intraday trading on the morning of April 27. (Photo provided by SK hynix)
SK Hynix, whose stock reached 1.30 million won (aproximately $882) after posting record first-quarter earnings, has become the world’s 16th-largest company by market capitalization. It climbed two spots from 18th to 16th in just one day.
According to CompaniesMarketCap, which tracks the market capitalizations of companies worldwide, on April 28, SK Hynix posted a market capitalization of $625.5 billion, ranking 16th globally. On that day, SK Hynix overtook Exxon Mobil and Visa of the United States.
SK Hynix shares have risen steeply since the company announced its first-quarter earnings on April 23. On that day, SK Hynix closed at 1.30 million won, up 0.62% from the previous trading day. Based on the closing price, its market capitalization stood at 926 trillion 51.31 billion won. Its intraday high, which was also a record high, was 1.328 million won. The stock has nearly doubled this year from 651,000 won on Dec. 30 last year.
Its market capitalization ranking has also climbed steadily. On March 24, SK Hynix rose to 21st in global market capitalization after overtaking Micron, a leading U.S. DRAM maker. It then climbed two more spots to 19th on April 21, rose to 17th on April 23, and reached 16th on that day. In about one month, its global market capitalization ranking advanced five places.
Eli Lilly, currently ranked 15th by market capitalization, has a market capitalization of $775.7 billion, a gap of $150.2 billion from SK Hynix. According to the Korea Exchange, SK Hynix’s market capitalization stood at 652.8353 trillion won on April 7 and 736.2215 trillion won on April 8, meaning it surged by about 190 trillion won over 14 trading days and about 273 trillion won over 15 trading days.
By contrast, Eli Lilly’s market capitalization has been on a downward slope this month. Its market capitalization fell by $77.3 billion (approximately 113.9 trillion won) from $853.0 billion on April 8 to $775.7 billion on April 27(local time). If this trend continues, SK Hynix could soon overtake Eli Lilly and challenge for 15th place in global market capitalization.
The rise in SK Hynix shares is attributed to its high operating profit margin and continuously upward revisions to earnings forecasts. SK Hynix’s first-quarter operating profit margin of 72% was up 30%p from the same period a year earlier. That was higher than rivals including Nvidia at 67.7%, TSMC at 58.1%, and Samsung Electronics at 43.01%. It is an extraordinary figure rarely seen in manufacturing sector.
Brokerages are therefore raising their target prices for SK Hynix. In South Korea, the target price has been lifted as high as 2.10 million won by Daol Investment & Securities, while Japan’s Nomura Securities raised its target price to 2.34 million won. On that day as well, Mirae Asset Securities raised its target price for SK Hynix to 2.00 million won from 1.66 million won.
Still, some are also saying SK Hynix shares may have reached their peak. On April 27, BNK Investment & Securities downgraded its investment opinion on SK Hynix to hold from buy and maintained its target price at 1.30 million won. Lee Man-hee, a researcher at BNK Investment & Securities, said, “Although earnings growth has been steep and semiconductor supply and demand will remain tight in the second half because existing server orders were large, momentum is expected to slow, so it will now transition to a low-PER (price-earnings ratio) stock,” adding, “There is positive news in the second half from a shareholder return policy and ADR issuance, but the stock needs to be viewed from the perspective of trading within a range.”
Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics, South Korea’s No. 1 company by market capitalization, is maintaining 13th place globally with a market capitalization of $990.1 billion.
Kim Eun-jin
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