Intraday market cap hits $1.59 trillion, ranking 9th globally
Samsung Electronics has overtaken Tesla in market capitalization and briefly surpassed Meta as well on Monday, climbing to ninth place globally.
The surge came after reports that HBM prices are expected to jump sharply next year and that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang signaled at his GTC Taipei keynote that high-performance, low-power memory chips from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix would be featured in upcoming products.
According to Korea Exchange, Samsung Electronics' market cap stood at $1.568 trillion as of 10 a.m. Monday, surpassing Tesla at $1.561 trillion and Meta at $1.524 trillion to rank ninth among the world's most valuable companies.
Samsung Electronics shares soared 10.09 percent on Monday to close at 349,000 won ($231), setting an all-time high — the first double-digit percentage gain since May 6, when the stock rose 14.41 percent. At one point during trading, the shares climbed as much as 11.83 percent to touch the 350,000-won range. The company's market cap also surpassed 2,000 trillion won for the first time, reaching 2,040 trillion won.
The rally continued Monday, with shares touching the 370,000-won range during trading. As of 10:45 a.m., the stock was up 1.65 percent from the previous session at 354,500 won.
Investor sentiment was further lifted by news that South Korea's semiconductor exports hit a record $37.2 billion in May, and by Huang's unveiling of the first AI PC chip, the N1 X, which is expected to incorporate high-performance, low-power memory from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
Han Dong-hee, a researcher at SK Securities, forecast that HBM prices next year would rise at least 50 percent from this year's levels, and that long-term supply contracts covering three to five years of demand visibility would strengthen conditions across the memory chip industry.
Ahead of Samsung Electronics in the global market cap rankings are Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, TSMC, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet and Nvidia.
dlcw@heraldcorp.com
