On January 26, 2024, the SK Hynix flag (R) and the Korean national flag (L) fly outside the Bundang office in Seongnam City.
Jung Young Jae | AFP | Getty Images
South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix posted record profits and sales for the quarter on Thursday, as product prices continue to soar on the back of strong AI demand. Earnings were generally in line with expectations, but profits were lower than expected.
Below is a comparison of SK Hynix’s Q1 results and LSEG’s prudent forecast. These focus on more consistently accurate analyst forecasts.
Revenue: 52.58 trillion won ($35.55 billion) vs. 53.55 trillion won Operating profit: 37.61 trillion won vs. 37.92 trillion won
Sales in the March quarter nearly tripled compared to the same period last year, exceeding 50 trillion won for the first time.
Operating income increased five times compared to the same period last year and nearly doubled compared to the previous quarter, and the operating profit margin reached a record high of 72%.
The company’s shares rose as much as 3.6% in early trading on the South Korean market, but have since fallen by 0.9%.
SK Hynix makes memory chips used to store data in a variety of devices, from servers to smartphones and laptops.
The company attributed its record profits to rising memory prices and surging demand for artificial intelligence. SK Hynix is the world’s leading supplier of high bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI data centers.
“(D)Despite what is typically a seasonal downturn in the first quarter, demand continued to be strong due to increased investment in AI infrastructure,” the company said in its earnings release.
The company added that memory demand is expected to continue to grow as artificial intelligence evolves from training large-scale models to agent AI that repeatedly performs real-time inference in a variety of service environments.
“Memory is more important than ever…As this supply-demand imbalance continues, customers are prioritizing procurement over price,” an SK Hynix executive said at an earnings conference on Thursday.
SK Hynix’s HBM technology falls into the broader category of dynamic random access memory (DRAM). DRAM is a type of semiconductor memory used to store data and program code used in PCs, workstations, and servers.
DRAM market duel
According to data from Counterpoint Research, the DRAM market recorded 30% quarter-over-quarter growth for the second consecutive quarter due to rising memory prices.
The rise in memory prices has been fueled by a surge in demand for HBM, which has limited manufacturing capacity and contributed to widespread memory shortages in recent quarters.
SK Hynix has gained an advantage over its rivals such as: micron and samsung electronics in the DRAM market thanks to its early lead in HBM and its role as a key supplier to the world’s leading AI processor manufacturers. Nvidia.
However, according to Counterpoint, in the last three months of 2025, Samsung regained the top spot in DRAM revenue from SK Hynix, which continued to dominate HBM with a 57% market share. Samsung stock hit a new intraday record of 227,000 shares on Thursday.
Samsung announced in February that it had begun shipping its first HBM4 chips to an unnamed customer, nearly a year after SK Hynix first began offering HBM4 samples.
HBM4 is the sixth generation of HBM technology and the most advanced version to date. It is expected to be the primary AI memory chip used in Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin architecture, designed for powerful AI workloads in data centers.
SK Hynix announced on Thursday that it will start supplying samples of the 7th generation HBM4E in the second half of this year, aiming for mass production in 2027.
Capacity constraints
SK Group Chairman Choi Tae-won reportedly said in March 2026 that the global chip wafer shortage is likely to continue until 2030 as demand for HBM continues to outstrip supply, straining manufacturing capacity.
He added that expanding wafer production capacity could take at least four to five years, and the shortfall is expected to exceed 20%.
SK Hynix is actively expanding its production capacity to meet rising demand. The company reportedly announced on Wednesday plans to invest 19 trillion won in a new manufacturing plant in South Korea.
MS Hwang, a research analyst at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC that memory companies’ first-quarter results “demonstrate strong profitability, making it clear that AI inference requires more memory than expected as companies scramble to secure supply.”
He added that even if memory price growth slows in the second half of this year, SK Hynix’s profits may continue to increase.
But the company could face headwinds if the Middle East conflict drags on beyond the second quarter, further disrupting the supply of materials essential to semiconductor manufacturing.
Huang said such a scenario could have a significant impact on the entire AI supply chain, but it is not expected to be a long-term problem.
SK Hynix said in an earnings call that it has diversified its suppliers of key industrial raw materials such as helium, bromine and tungsten and has built up sufficient inventories and expects the impact on production to be limited.
The company added that long-term contracts for liquefied natural gas should help mitigate potential increases in energy costs.
