In the December quarter, SK Hynix of South Korea reported an operating profit of 8.08 trillion won ($5.6 billion), higher than the 8 trillion won average predicted by LSEG SmartEstimate. Additionally, the business increased its yearly dividend to 1,500 won per share, a 25% increase.
Nvidia Corp.’s primary high-bandwidth memory provider, SK Hynix Inc., announced a quarterly profit that outperformed its larger rival, Samsung.
In the December quarter, SK Hynix of South Korea reported an operating profit of 8.08 trillion won ($5.6 billion), higher than the 8 trillion won average predicted by LSEG SmartEstimate. Additionally, the business increased its yearly dividend to 1,500 won per share, a 25% increase.
In the fourth quarter, 40% of the company’s total DRAM sales came from HBM chips. Its total quarterly income was 19.8 trillion won, a 75% year-over-year increase.
SK Hynix’s operational profit surpassed Samsung’s fourth-quarter operating profit of 6.5 trillion won. According to Reuters, as its competitor struggles to provide Nvidia with high-end HBM chips, SK Hynix’s quarterly operating profit surpassed Samsung’s overall operating profit for the first time.
Sales of the company’s premium semiconductors, used in chipsets for generative artificial intelligence, are expected to treble this year.
According to a statement from SK Hynix, “As global big tech companies’ investment in AI servers grows and AI inference technology gains importance, the demand for HBM and high-density server DRAM… will continue to increase.”
According to Reuters, SK Hynix announced it started supplying a client with 12-layer HBM3E chips in the fourth quarter. These chips are the most sophisticated HBM model presently in mass production. It anticipates that in the second half of 2026, it will begin to sell even more sophisticated 16-layer HBM4 chips and that US regulations will make it harder for Chinese competitors to produce cutting-edge devices.
SK Hynix Share Price:
However, the business warned of sharper price decreases for commodity memory chips used in computers and smartphones due to reduced demand and increased competition from Chinese rivals, which caused SK Hynix’s share price to drop 4% on Thursday.
Before the results, SK Hynix’s stock had increased by almost 30% this year due to an optimistic mood stoked by its commercial talks with Nvidia. According to Reuters, the company did better than Samsung, whose shares increased 2% within the same time frame.
