Jensen Huang Praises SK Hynix's 'Incredibly Successful' Nasdaq Debut: Inside the $26.5 Billion Record-Breaking ADR Offering

Pricing: $149 per American Depositary Receipt .

First-day performance: ADRs opened at $170 — a roughly 14% opening pop — and closed the session at $168.01, for a first-day gain of about 13% . (The opening was ~14% above the offer price rather than exactly 17%, but the IPO was widely described as commanding a significant premium.)

Rank: Largest-ever U.S. share sale by a foreign company, surpassing Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014 . It was also the second-largest stock sale globally in 2026, behind only SpaceX .

Ticker symbol: SKHY .

Structure: 177.9 million ADRs sold, each representing one-tenth of a share of SK Hynix common stock (equivalent to 17.79 million underlying shares) .

Use of proceeds: All proceeds are being used to expand semiconductor production capacity — buying chip equipment and building new factories — as the company rides surging AI-driven demand .

Broader Context: Deepening Nvidia–SK Hynix Partnership

SK Hynix is Nvidia's largest memory chip supplier and the dominant force in high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is critical for AI accelerators.

• HBM market share: Analysts put SK Hynix's global HBM market share at roughly 50–62%. Some estimates from early 2026 cite about 55–60%, while Counterpoint Research reported SK Hynix at 62% in Q2 2025 .
• HBM4 allocation: SK Hynix has secured approximately 70% of Nvidia's HBM4 orders for the next-generation "Vera Rubin" AI platform, according to multiple industry reports from January through July 2026 .
• 2026 supply sold out: SK Hynix has effectively sold out its entire HBM, DRAM, and NAND production capacity for 2026 to Nvidia and other major customers .
• Pricing power: The extreme demand has given SK Hynix significant pricing leverage, with HBM prices remaining elevated and the company forecasting a "memory supercycle" driven by AI .

Samsung Exploring a U.S. ADR Listing

On July 14, 2026 — just days after SK Hynix's debut — Bloomberg reported that Samsung Electronics is in the early stages of exploring a potential U.S. ADR offering, having held preliminary discussions with banks . However, Samsung subsequently denied the report, with an official telling Korean media on July 15 that the company is "not considering" an ADR listing . The situation remains fluid: Samsung had previously considered and rejected a U.S. listing, and activist investor Artisan Partners has publicly pushed for ADRs to close the company's valuation gap with rivals .