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 for generative AI chipsets, as it competes with rival Samsung for the title of the world’s top memory producer.
Here are the company’s results versus LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:
- Revenue: 32.827 trillion won ($23 billion) vs. 32.132 trillion won expected
- Operating profit: 19.17 trillion won vs. 17.729 trillion won expected
Revenue rose about 66% in the December quarter from a year earlier, while operating profit surged 137% over 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.
SK Hynix said its HBM revenue more than doubled in 2025. This helped it reach a record 97.147 trillion won in revenue for the year, up nearly 50% from 2024. Meanwhile, its annual operating profit reached 47.206 trillion won, more than double the previous year’s.
“We see SK hynix as one of the biggest AI winners in Asia, driven by its leadership in HBM and strong overall memory competitiveness,” said Ray Wang, an analyst at SemiAnalysis focused on memory and the AI supply chain.
“Beyond HBM, commodity DRAM will be a critical earnings driver this year, supported by rapidly expanding margins and demand stemming from a structural supply shortage,” he added.
Demand for HBM has far outpaced supply, triggering shortages across the memory sector, including for less advanced memory chips used in consumer electronics and electric vehicles.
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 also announced on Wednesday plans to cancel treasury shares worth 12.24 trillion won, a move aimed at boosting shareholder value. The announcement followed a surge in the memory maker’s share price on Tuesday after local media reported that it had become the exclusive supplier of advanced memory chips for a new AI processor developed by Microsoft.
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.
