SK hynix reported on the 28th record quarterly consolidated operating profit of 83.3338 trillion won on revenue of 104.6155 trillion won. Taiwan's United Daily News said the news helped ignite a rebound in Wall Street tech shares.
According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun and the Korea Financial Times, SK hynix's third-quarter consolidated revenue came to 104.6155 trillion won, up 327.9% from a year earlier and 31.9% from the previous quarter. Operating profit of 83.3338 trillion won was up 632.1% on the year, more than seven times the level a year ago, and up 37.6% on the quarter. The operating margin was 79.7%, up 3.4 percentage points from 76.3% in the second quarter.
광고 문의 · 300×250Net profit was 39.7756 trillion won, down 57.7% from 93.923 trillion won in the previous quarter. The Korea Financial Times said the cause was non-operating items, which swung from a gain of about 62 trillion won in the second quarter to a loss of about 32 trillion won in the third. Foreign-exchange results turned from a gain of about 1 trillion won to a loss of about 11 trillion won, and other non-operating items from a gain of about 60 trillion won to a loss of about 21 trillion won.
AI demand drives results, HBM4 to take over in Q4
The company said high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI data centers led the results. It will raise capacity at its Cheongju M15X fab as far as possible by year-end to expand HBM4 supply, and expects HBM4 to overtake HBM3E in both shipments and revenue in the fourth quarter. In DRAM it will raise the share of sixth-generation 10-nanometer-class (1c) process, and in NAND it will expand sales of 321-layer enterprise SSDs.
Its medium- and long-term outlook is also upbeat. The company said advanced-process difficulty and the time needed to build fabs limit supply growth, so demand should exceed supply through 2030. It has signed long-term supply agreements with 14 customers, including large cloud providers, and more than half of its 2027-2028 total capacity is covered by contracted volume.
A 100 trillion won shareholder return, and Wall Street reacts
The shareholder return is also striking. The company set this fiscal year's payout at about 100 trillion won, combining cash dividends of at least 30 trillion won with share buybacks and cancellations of at least 60 trillion won. The board approved a dividend of 20,000 won per share (10,000 won tied to earnings plus a 10,000 won special dividend reflecting gains on its Kioxia investment) and a 20 trillion won buyback; 10 trillion won of it will be cancelled in full and the rest used for employee compensation. The dividend record date is November 30.
United Daily News, compiling foreign wire reports, said all four major U.S. indexes rose in early trading on the 28th and U.S.-listed SK hynix shares jumped 10%. Micron gained 5%, Arm nearly 2% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index 1%. Markets were focused more on the Federal Reserve's rate decision due the same day, and whether the tech rally will last has not been confirmed.