{"id":122427,"date":"2026-07-29T06:53:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/122427\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T06:53:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:53:27","slug":"sk-hynix-posts-1200-net-profit-boost-on-ai-chip-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/122427\/","title":{"rendered":"SK hynix posts 1,200% net profit boost on AI chip boom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/1DB3C5B4EC8A23DB0359AE09D68C215764E3EA3C49D436E90AADBCBF39DAEF9F\/subgraphmysterio\/resizefit_w960;quality_80;format_webp\/https:%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Fafp.com%2F63ff31e88d2408851a8807df06500663\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==\" height=\"516\" width=\"768\" class=\"yf-j98iil loader\"\/><\/a> Despite aggressive investments, shares of SK hynix and its larger South Korean rival Samsung Electronics have fallen sharply (Jung Yeon-je)           <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">South Korea&#8217;s SK hynix said Wednesday second-quarter net profit soared a whopping 1,242 percent year-on-year, driven by the artificial intelligence industry&#8217;s explosive demand for its advanced memory chips.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">SK hynix is a specialist supplier of high-bandwidth memory chips to US industry behemoth Nvidia, and a pillar of South Korea&#8217;s tech-led economy.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">The global race to build data centres hosting AI infrastructure has seen a meteoric rise in the firm&#8217;s fortunes, despite concern the sector may be overvalued in a market bubble.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Wednesday&#8217;s earnings figures, including quarterly net profit of 94 trillion won ($64 billion), were described in a statement by the Icheon-headquartered firm as &#8220;an all-time high quarterly performance&#8221;.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">&#8220;We are aware of concerns that AI infrastructure investment might be slowing down,&#8221; marketing chief of the AI microchip division Park Joon-deok said on a call with investors and reporters.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">He cited jitters over firms exploring data centre rental &#8212; rather than construction &#8212; and the emergence of new high-efficiency AI requiring a lower memory taskload.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">&#8220;We view these developments not as a scaling back of AI investment, but rather as a process of maximising the utilisation of the massive AI infrastructure built to date and accelerating its monetisation,&#8221; he said.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Wednesday&#8217;s report said operating profit between April and June jumped 557 percent from last year to 60 trillion won.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Revenue stood at 79 trillion won, with the differential to the net profit boosted by SK hynix&#8217;s one-off sale of its 20 trillion won stake in flash memory maker Kioxia &#8212; another beneficiary of the AI boom.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">SK hynix said it intends to make investments in the 40 trillion won range this year.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Growth was attributed to expanding investments in AI infrastructure as the technology evolves into more complex forms requiring more high-bandwidth memory capacity.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">&#8220;With major tech companies increasing their AI infrastructure investments, additional supply requests continue to mount,&#8221; the company said in a statement.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">&#8220;As these investments are supported by revenue generated from AI services, the momentum in memory demand is expected to persist.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">&#8211; Big US listing &#8211;  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Parent firm SK Group announced on Saturday plans for a new $500 billion collaboration with Nvidia to invest in AI infrastructure.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Earlier this month, SK hynix also raised $26.5 billion through an American Depositary Receipt listing in the US, one of the world&#8217;s largest-ever equity offerings.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Despite aggressive investments, shares of SK hynix and its larger South Korean rival Samsung Electronics have fallen sharply by 33 per cent and 41 per cent respectively over the past month.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">SK hynix shares tumbled 14 percent on Tuesday, the day before the earnings release.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">The dip has been caused by concerns about AI industry sustainability and conflict in the Middle East spooking investors, KB Securities analyst Kim Dong-won said in a note on Monday.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Nonetheless, Kim forecast memory chip prices are likely to rise &#8220;at least 30 percent in the third quarter&#8221; with supply shortages likely to persist through to 2028.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Samsung Electronics is due to report its quarterly earnings on Thursday.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">The company has forecast second-quarter operating profits to increase 1,800 per cent on last year.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">sjh\/jts\/kaf  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite aggressive investments, shares of SK hynix and its larger South Korean rival Samsung Electronics have fallen sharply&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,883,4547,3591,13894,13757,698],"class_list":["post-122427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-investments","tag-memory-chips","tag-net-profit","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk-hynix","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}