SK Hynix smashes earnings estimates as AI memory demand drives record profit
Signage at the SK Hynix Inc. booth at the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, China, on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. The expo runs through Nov. 10. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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South Korea’s SK Hynix on Wednesday posted record quarterly revenue and profit, boosted by surging memory prices and demand from generative AI chipsets, as it battles rival Samsung for the status as the world’s top memory producer.
Here are SK Hynix’s first-quarter results versus LSEG consensus estimates:
- Revenue: 32.827 trillion won ($23 billion) vs. 32.132 trillion won
- Operating profit: 19.17 trillion won vs. 17.729 trillion won
Revenue rose about 66% in the December quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, while operating profit surged 137% in the same period.
SK Hynix makes memory chips used to store data, which are found in everything from servers to consumer devices such as smartphones and laptops.
The company has benefited from a boom in artificial intelligence as a key supplier of high-bandwidth memory or HBM chips used to power AI data center servers.
HBM falls into the broader category of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM — a type of semiconductor memory used to store data and program code that can be found in PCs, workstations and servers.
“HBM revenue more than doubled year-on-year, making a significant contribution to the company’s record performance [last year],” it said in its earnings report.
Demand for HBM has far outpaced what memory makers have been able to supply, with the impacts on manufacturers’ capacity also triggering shortages for less advanced memory chips used in consumer electronics and EVs.
As a result of this environment, memory prices have been surging, with shortages expected to last into next year as companies like Sk Hynix wait for more capacity expansions to come online.
SK Hynix will hold an earnings call with investors on Thursday. Samsung, SK Hynix’s leading competitor in the memory market, including HBM, is also set to report earnings today.
