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SK Hynix headquarters in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. / Courtesy of Yonhap News

SK Hynix’s entry into the U.S. stock market is a symbolic milestone indicating how highly South Korea’s flagship semiconductor leader is valued in the world's largest equity market. Through its listing of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), SK Hynix plans to raise up to 45 trillion won. This influx will position the company to achieve its target of 100 trillion won in net cash with greater ease. "Following the ADR listing, our investor base will expand, ultimately allowing the market to properly evaluate our true enterprise value," the company stated, adding, "We expect our global standing as a top-tier company to be further elevated as we broaden our footprint in the United States, the heart of AI technological innovation."

On the 24th, SK Hynix announced its plan to submit a registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in line with the opening of the local U.S. market. The company explained, "We are targeting the official listing and commencement of trading on July 10, U.S. time."

An ADR is a system where securities are issued by a U.S. bank to enable shares to be traded on U.S. exchanges and denominated in local dollars. The SEC's listing review will be finalized once the cross-border registration statement becomes effective in both South Korea and the United States.

Regarding the remaining timeline, the registration statement will take effect on the 6th of next month, accompanied by the submission of the prospectus, and the ADR bookbuilding process will commence on the same day. Subsequently, on the 10th (local time the 9th), the ADR offering price will be finalized, and the underwriting agreement will be signed.

Through the ADR listing, SK Hynix has secured the momentum to continuously scale up its astronomical facility investments and research and development (R&D) expenditures.

The investment projects announced by SK Hynix since the beginning of this year alone run into tens of trillions of won. The new investment cost for the Yongin Cluster stands at 21.6 trillion won, while 10 billion dollars (15 trillion won) will be funneled into establishing an independent AI subsidiary. Additionally, 19 trillion won is earmarked for new investments in advanced packaging at the P&T facility. SK Hynix disclosed in its registration statement that it expended capital of 8.32 trillion won in 2023, 15.94 trillion won in 2024, 27.51 trillion won in 2025, and 7.65 trillion won in the first quarter of this year to expand its mass production capacity for advanced memory chips like HBM.

Furthermore, industry expectations persist that the company is reviewing plans to expand semiconductor cluster investments into the Honam and Chungcheong regions. The scale of the investments under discussion reaches into hundreds of trillions of won.

R&D expenditures are also steadily rising. Last year, the company allocated 6.73 trillion won toward R&D, a 35.9% increase year-on-year, and spent 2.55 trillion won in the first quarter of this year, representing a 65.2% surge compared to the previous year.

This aggressive scaling is not unique to SK Hynix. Micron has also committed to investing up to $100 billion (approximately 152 trillion won) over the next 20 years to build a semiconductor fab in Clay, north of Syracuse, New York. Micron plans to deploy a total of $200 billion (approximately 305 trillion won) to expand memory production and R&D within the United States, including that facility.

Notably, Micron serves as the primary local peer comparison in the U.S. market, yet SK Hynix outperformed Micron in terms of operating profit generation capability as of the first quarter.

                                                                                                            Ahn So-yeon