[DigitalToday reporter Daegeon Seok] Market expectations are at a peak ahead of SK hynix's release of preliminary first-quarter results on April 23. On April 21, SK hynix shares climbed as high as 1,228,000 won intraday, setting a record high.

It follows Samsung Electronics' April 7 announcement of 57.2 trillion won in operating profit, nearly 12 trillion won above the highest brokerage estimate, which further lifted expectations for SK hynix. Brokerages forecast SK hynix operating profit of 38 to 40 trillion won, up to more than 4 trillion won above the market consensus of 35.9 trillion won.

Brokerages commonly say the expected earnings surprise will be led not by high bandwidth memory (HBM) but by conventional DRAM and enterprise solid state drives (eSSD). IBK Investment & Securities estimates SK hynix's blended DRAM average selling price (ASP) will jump 65 percent from the previous quarter, while Kiwoom Securities forecasts a 55 percent rise. Both brokerages estimate NAND ASP will rise 70 to 81 percent. They say HBM's share will fall from the previous quarter to around 30 percent, but the price surge for conventional products will more than offset it.

The industry ministry said average daily memory semiconductor export value in March rose 195 percent from a year earlier to $990 million, and average daily NAND export value topped $100 million for the first time. The surge in conventional memory prices is acting across the industry at the same time.

A change in the demand structure is also underpinning earnings expectations. IBK Investment & Securities sharply raised its 2026 server DRAM content growth forecast to 38.8 percent. Server unit growth itself is only 11.3 percent, but it means DRAM capacity installed in each server is rising much faster. The brokerage said, "It is the result of DRAM beginning to establish itself as the core system of AI servers," viewing memory not as a simple component but as a key element of AI infrastructure.

◆ An Achilles' heel hidden behind the earnings surprise... gap between NAND expectations and reality

But NAND comes with a caveat. ASP has surged, but first-quarter bit growth (B/G) is estimated to post minus 3 percent. It is a structure in which sales volume cannot keep up because production capacity cannot be expanded sufficiently even if prices rise. It means profitability is improving, but constraints on volume expansion still remain.

Even so, the market outlook is positive. IBK Investment & Securities said, "Just as it started with HBM and spread to DRAM, the time for explosive growth in NAND demand will also arrive," but added, "It has not even started yet." It said that while overall performance is racing toward an all-time high, NAND alone has yet to get its engine started.

Some also say this earnings benefit will not end with SK hynix. SK hynix has a market capitalisation of 636 trillion won, while its largest shareholder, SK Inc, has a market capitalisation of only 23 trillion won. Daishin Securities focused on a chain holding company structure in which the value of a 636 trillion won great-grandchild company is reflected in SK Inc via SK square.

It said restrictions on direct purchases of SK hynix have emerged because regulations by the Korea Financial Investment Association cap a single stock's weighting in equity funds at 10 percent, making SK square an alternative investment destination. SK square's discount to net asset value (NAV) was 46 percent as of February, the lowest on record. Daishin Securities analysed that, given the largest shareholder's low stake, the incentive to resolve the discount is stronger than at any other holding company as part of efforts to defend management control.