![\"Yonhap](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/news-p.v1.20260530.942c4b62a5484046814153f1411b1134_P1.png\"\/ "\\"SK")
Yonhap News<\/p>\nYonhap News<\/p>\n
The market capitalization gap between Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix (000660.KS) narrowed to a historic low at one point, drawing renewed attention to a brokerage report that views a market cap reversal between the two companies as a signal of the end of the bull market.<\/p>\n
Market Cap Gap Narrows to 119 Trillion Won, Half of Last Year’s Level<\/p>\n
According to the Korea Exchange on Wednesday, the market capitalization gap between the two companies narrowed at one point to 119.5847 trillion won during trading on Friday, as Samsung Electronics shares fell 2.44% and SK hynix rose 2.05%. SK hynix’s market cap as a percentage of Samsung Electronics’ market cap, which stood at just 46.5% around this time last year, surged from 64.8% at the start of this year to 93.2% on Friday.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Samsung Electronics jumped 5.84% on news that it had become the world’s first to begin sample shipments of HBM4E, the seventh-generation high bandwidth memory product, returning the market cap gap to around 190 trillion won. However, with year-to-date share price gains of 258.4% for SK hynix and 164.4% for Samsung Electronics, observers note that the trend of narrowing gap remains intact.<\/p>\n
While SK hynix leads the HBM market, a key component for AI semiconductors, attracting global investment demand, Samsung Electronics holds diverse business segments including mobile and home appliances, which has relatively diluted the impact of the semiconductor industry recovery, analysts say. The same pattern is evident among retail investors. Between November 1 and 28, SK hynix ranked first in net retail buying at 14.7690 trillion won, while Samsung Electronics came in second at 10.9392 trillion won.<\/p>\n
“Reversal Moment Signals Bubble”\u2026But This Time Is Different<\/p>\n
As the market cap gap narrowed to a historic low, a recent report from Hana Securities has drawn renewed attention. Lee Jae-man, a researcher at Hana Securities, said, “If SK hynix’s market capitalization overtakes Samsung Electronics, it could be a signal that the current bull market based on earnings growth is ending,” noting that “the end of the 2000 tech bubble emerged in a situation where only the top market cap company changed amid stock price overheating.” At the time, Cisco Systems overtook Microsoft and General Electric to become the No. 1 market cap company in the S&P 500, but its net profit was only 20% of GE’s and 28% of Microsoft’s. It was a case where expectations drove share prices ahead of fundamentals, eventually leading to the bubble’s collapse.<\/p>\n
There are counterarguments that the current situation differs from that period. Samsung Electronics’ 2026 net profit estimate stands at 280 trillion won, exceeding SK hynix’s estimate of 208 trillion won, supporting the view that the current market cap concentration is based on fundamentals. Kim Dong-won, head of KB Securities’ research center, said, “When the semiconductor industry is doing well, hynix can gain greater momentum, but over the long term, the two stocks tend to share the same industry cycle and move together.” He added, “Even if SK hynix’s market capitalization temporarily surpasses Samsung Electronics, there is no need to attach great significance to that fact itself.”<\/p>\n
Who Owns Samsung’s 57 Trillion Won Profit? The Real Reason Behind the Excess Profit Debate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yonhap News The market capitalization gap between Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix (000660.KS) narrowed to a historic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[5319,12484,6368,337,22355,127,276,275,22356],"class_list":["post-36046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung-electronics","tag-ai-semiconductors","tag-hana-securities","tag-hbm4e","tag-korea-exchange","tag-market-capitalization-gap","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk-hynix","tag-tech-bubble"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}