Korean Brokerages Diverge on SK Hynix Outlook: Core Disagreement Centers on Whether AI Storage Demand Can Drive Long-Term Growth

According to Korean media Etoday, Korean securities firms have shown significant divergence in their assessments of SK Hynix's prospects, with the core divergence centering on whether AI storage demand can drive long-term growth. KB Securities maintains a "Buy" rating for SK Hynix. Based on the case of TSMC's ADR issuance in the US in 1997, it judges that SK Hynix's ADR listing will boost global investor participation and is expected to drive a synchronized revaluation of ADRs and Korean domestic shares. KB Securities also expects that in 2027, global DRAM and NAND wafer capacity growth rates will be only 7% and 4% respectively, lower than demand growth rates of 17% and 19%, and the tight memory supply situation may intensify further compared to 2026. BNK Investment & Securities, however, believes that the logic of hyperscale cloud service providers continuously increasing AI infrastructure investment is weakening, and the ADR listing will not significantly alter SK Hynix's domestic share valuation.