← SK hynix Inc.

SKHY · Forward model · Song case

The Song case, 20 quarters out

Model as of

Each segment is projected from its own operating driver, rolled up into consolidated cash flow, and discounted back to a fair value per share. The assumptions below are editable — change them and every number on this page moves with them.

Quarters are calendar quarters, the way SK hynix reports them: 2026 Q2 is the three months ended 30 June 2026, reported 29 July 2026. SK hynix reports ONE segment - 'as revenue from the semiconductor segment exceeds 90% of the Company's total revenue, its business is presented as a single semiconductor segment' - but every quarterly, half-year and annual filing carries a revenue-by-product note splitting revenue into DRAM, NAND Flash and Others. Those three lines are this model, and nothing finer. HBM is 56.4% of a market SK hynix leads and it appears in no revenue table in any filing, so there is no HBM vertical here; inventing one would be manufacturing the most important number on the page. Fourteen quarters of history, 2023 Q1 to 2026 Q2, sum to reported consolidated revenue in every quarter, and to $52.06bn (W79,318,746m) in the basis quarter. Eleven of the fourteen are read from a disclosed three-month column; the three December quarters are derived as full year minus nine months and are the only points marked estimated - each still ties to the quarterly release total (W11.31tn for 4Q23, W19.77tn for 4Q24, W32.83tn for 4Q25). Currency: the company files in won and this model runs in USD at a FIXED W1,523.5, the rate the stored series was built on, so quarters stay constant-currency. The market price it is measured against embeds a spot rate near W1,382, about 10% stronger, and the ADS at $158.02 sits about 26.5% above the Seoul common line translated at that spot - both gaps are real and neither is modelled away. Volume is an INDEX, not a bit count: SK hynix discloses only quarter-on-quarter percentage changes in shipments, never absolute bits, so units are set to 100 at 2026 Q2 and the price per index point is that quarter's revenue divided by 100. Read the unit traces as relative volume and relative ASP. No product-level margin, capex or capacity is disclosed anywhere, so the 81.4% basis EBITDA margin is the consolidated figure (operating profit W60,542,608m plus D&A W4,028,246m over revenue) applied to both memory lines, and the terminal margins - 45% for DRAM, 30% for NAND, 15% for Others - are assumptions about a mid-cycle, not disclosures. Because that margin is already after SG&A, corporate overhead is set to zero rather than charged twice. Capital spending is split: 9.5% of revenue at the basis quarter gliding to 15% carries the maintenance and technology-migration spend inside the verticals, and the two fab programmes approved on 7 August 2026 - Yongin Y2 at W35,224.6bn to October 2031 and Cheongju M17 at W19,100bn to April 2031 - are carried separately at their filed totals and schedules, because a committed fab spends on its own calendar whether or not revenue grows. Together they put FY2026 capex at about W46 trillion against guidance of the high W40 trillion range. P&T7's W7,093.1bn is an increase to an already-approved packaging plant with no disclosed schedule, so it sits inside the revenue-scaled line rather than as a third programme. Share count and net cash are both pro-forma for the same November 2026 state, so the buyback is not counted twice: 7,047,966,690 ADS-equivalent shares (728,866,669 common less the 24,070,000 approved for cancellation, times ten ADSs per share) and $45.3bn of net cash (W69.4tn at 30 June, plus the W39.9tn of July ADS proceeds, less the W40.0tn buyback and the W0.27tn Q2 dividend). Both assume the programme completes in full by 19 November 2026. Net profit is NOT in this model at all: the W93.9tn reported for the quarter exceeds revenue because W65.9tn of it is finance income, largely a derivative revaluation on the 2023 exchangeable bonds. Seasonality: DRAM and NAND are modelled aseasonal on purpose. A ratio-to-centred-moving-average run over all fourteen quarters gives DRAM factors of [0.927, 1.051, 1.014, 1.008] with window-to-window spreads of 0.051, 0.059, 0.191 and 0.252 - the spread exceeds the signal by two to five times, and the apparent Q4 strength is trend, because every year in the sample was an up-year. Only Others carries a shape bigger than its noise, and it is half a percent of revenue.

SKHY forward model
Horizon
Fair value per share $249.91 +33% against $188.30
Terminal-year revenue $497.33B last four projected quarters
Enterprise value $1.72T $610.26B explicit + $1.11T terminal

President Song Hyeon-jong's case on the 29 July call: memory has stopped being a spot commodity. Long-term agreements are finalised with around ten customers on terms of around five years - the first contracted multi-year memory volume in SK hynix's disclosure record - so the amplitude of the next downturn is damped even when spot prices fall, and the terminal margin sits above the historical mid-cycle rather than at it. Modelled as five points of margin, half a point a quarter of extra volume and a 7x exit at a 10.5% discount rate: fair value $249.91, close to the $245.43 street target. What it does not achieve: no disclosed volume floor, no disclosed price floor and no disclosed share of revenue under contract exists in any filing, so this case rests on a transcript, and it still ends the horizon with a 51.5% EBITDA margin - well below today's 81.4%.

SKHY REVENUE MODEL

Latest: $124.72B (2031Q2E)

Period Value
2023Q1 $3.34B
2023Q2 $4.80B
2023Q3 $5.95B
2023Q4 $7.42B
2024Q1 $8.16B
2024Q2 $10.78B
2024Q3 $11.53B
2024Q4 $12.97B
2025Q1 $11.58B
2025Q2 $14.59B
2025Q3 $16.05B
2025Q4 $21.55B
2026Q1 $34.51B
2026Q2 $52.06B
2026Q3E $64.96B
2026Q4E $76.60B
2027Q1E $86.46B
2027Q2E $94.69B
2027Q3E $101.32B
2027Q4E $106.61B
2028Q1E $110.65B
2028Q2E $113.86B
2028Q3E $116.34B
2028Q4E $118.29B
2029Q1E $119.70B
2029Q2E $120.87B
2029Q3E $121.78B
2029Q4E $122.52B
2030Q1E $123.02B
2030Q2E $123.50B
2030Q3E $123.89B
2030Q4E $124.25B
2031Q1E $124.46B
2031Q2E $124.72B
Scenarios

Where each case comes from

Bear case — primary sources

The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Bear column is what happens if they are taken at face value.

Bull case — primary sources

The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Bull column is what happens if they are taken at face value.

Song case — primary sources

The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Song column is what happens if they are taken at face value.

Valuation

From cash flow to fair value

The published model, discounted at 10.5% a year with an exit multiple of 7.0x on EBITDA. The sliders above do not change this walk.

Present value of free cash flow, 20 quarters$610.26B
Terminal-year revenue$497.33B
Terminal-year EBITDA$260.24B
Exit multiple, on EBITDA7.0x
Terminal value$1.82T
Discounted at 10.5% a year, terminal value becomes$1.11T
Share of enterprise value from the terminal64%
Enterprise value$1.72T
Net cash$45.30B
Equity value$1.76T
Shares7.05B
Fair value per share$249.91
Against the deployed price of $188.30, as of +33%

EV/EBITDA on a mid-cycle margin, not on this one. A DCF is not defensible here: the terminal value would be dominated by an ASP assumption with no long-run trend, and the discount rate would be doing less work than the margin. The base case exits at 6.0x the final four quarters' EBITDA of $214.6bn - memory has traded 4-8x mid-cycle EBITDA for two decades - discounted at 11%, above the US large-cap semi range for cycle and currency risk. Each case discounts at its own rate: 14% in Bear, 9.5% in Bull, 10.5% in Song. That gives an enterprise value of $1,279bn, a fair value of $187.86 an ADS against $158.02, and a range of $75 to $377 across the cases. Read two warnings with it. First, the exit multiple and the price path decide almost the whole answer: the terminal value is $764bn of the $1,279bn. Second, every multiple quoted about this company today annualises the most extreme quarter in its history - the same business ran a 35% operating margin across 2024 and a negative 20% one in 2023 Q3. The 6.5x on the ADS market cap, and 5.1x on the Seoul line, that today's price implies against an annualised June-quarter EBITDA of $169.5bn are floors, not multiples to underwrite. Note also what this fair value is measured against: the ADS at $158.02, which is about 26.5% above the Seoul common line at spot FX, and the operating model runs at a fixed W1,523.5 while the market embeds about W1,382.

Read the other way round: at $188.30 the market is paying 4.3x terminal-year EBITDA, holding every other assumption on this page fixed. That is the number to argue about.

Capital programmes

Capex outside the verticals

Each vertical's capex is a share of its own revenue, which is the right shape for capacity that scales with sales. These are not that: fixed-size programmes with their own schedule that spend whether or not any segment grows. They are added on top, and they are why free cash flow dips in the years below.

Yongin Y2

2026 Q3 → 2031 Q2
Programme total$23.12B
Cash out$1.05B/qtr

W35,224.6bn approved 7 August 2026, investment period to 31 October 2031 - 29.19% of total equity at 31 December 2025. Groundbreaking July 2027, first cleanroom June 2029, for HBM and next-generation DRAM. Carried at the filed total spread evenly over the 22 quarters of the disclosed period, because a committed fab spends on its own calendar, not on a percentage of revenue.

Cheongju M17

2026 Q3 → 2031 Q1
Programme total$12.54B
Cash out$660M/qtr

W19,100bn approved 7 August 2026, investment period to April 2031. Groundbreaking February 2027, first cleanroom December 2028, for NAND. Spread evenly over the 19 quarters of the disclosed period. This is the supply that answers the NAND price in this model, and it is dated more than two years out.

Quarter by quarter

The projected path

Quarter DRAM (including HBM)NAND flashOthers (foundry and system LSI) Revenue YoY EBITDA Capex FCF R40 PV of FCF
2026 Q3E $47.55B$17.16B$253M $64.96B +305% $53.35B $8.42B $34.60B +358 $33.74B
2026 Q4E $56.69B$19.61B$291M $76.60B +255% $60.15B $10.15B $38.50B +306 $36.62B
2027 Q1E $64.53B$21.71B$224M $86.46B +151% $65.16B $11.76B $41.12B +198 $38.16B
2027 Q2E $71.03B$23.42B$241M $94.69B +82% $68.62B $13.19B $42.68B +127 $38.62B
2027 Q3E $76.30B$24.77B$249M $101.32B +56% $70.79B $14.43B $43.40B +99 $38.30B
2027 Q4E $80.51B$25.81B$288M $106.61B +39% $71.97B $15.48B $43.50B +80 $37.45B
2028 Q1E $83.86B$26.57B$224M $110.65B +28% $72.41B $16.35B $43.16B +67 $36.24B
2028 Q2E $86.50B$27.12B$241M $113.86B +20% $72.35B $17.08B $42.56B +58 $34.85B
2028 Q3E $88.60B$27.49B$250M $116.34B +15% $71.94B $17.67B $41.79B +51 $33.38B
2028 Q4E $90.28B$27.73B$291M $118.29B +11% $71.33B $18.16B $40.94B +46 $31.89B
2029 Q1E $91.62B$27.85B$226M $119.70B +8% $70.56B $18.56B $40.05B +42 $30.43B
2029 Q2E $92.72B$27.90B$244M $120.87B +6% $69.76B $18.89B $39.17B +39 $29.03B
2029 Q3E $93.63B$27.89B$253M $121.78B +5% $68.94B $19.16B $38.33B +36 $27.71B
2029 Q4E $94.40B$27.83B$295M $122.52B +4% $68.13B $19.38B $37.54B +34 $26.47B
2030 Q1E $95.06B$27.74B$230M $123.02B +3% $67.34B $19.56B $36.79B +33 $25.30B
2030 Q2E $95.63B$27.62B$249M $123.50B +2% $66.61B $19.72B $36.11B +31 $24.22B
2030 Q3E $96.15B$27.48B$258M $123.89B +2% $65.94B $19.85B $35.49B +30 $23.22B
2030 Q4E $96.62B$27.33B$301M $124.25B +1% $65.32B $19.97B $34.92B +30 $22.28B
2031 Q1E $97.06B$27.17B$234M $124.46B +1% $64.74B $20.06B $34.41B +29 $21.41B
2031 Q2E $97.47B$27.00B$253M $124.72B +1% $64.24B $19.48B $34.46B +29 $20.92B

Every row is projected. A year-over-year change is shown only where the quarter it compares against exists — an em dash means there is no comparable quarter, not a flat year.

Track record

Model revisions

Assumptions are marked to reality as each quarter prints. Every change is appended here, with the fair value the model produced at the time, so the model's own history stays visible.

DateFair value thenNote
2026-08-27 $187.86 First published model, built on the 2026 Q2 print of 29 July 2026 and the semi-annual report 6-K of 18 August. Three disclosed product lines, fourteen quarters of history, bit-index-times-ASP drivers on both memory lines, and the two fabs approved on 7 August carried as capital programmes. Shares and net cash are pro-forma for the W40 trillion buyback and cancellation approved 19 August.