SK Hynix Posts 6-Year High Profit On AI Boom

South Korea's SK Hynix has posted its highest quarterly profit since 2018, as the Nvidia supplier said strong AI chip demand will only get stronger, such as for high bandwidth memory (HBM) used in generative AI chipsets, Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yang reported for Reuters.

The world's second-largest memory chip maker has benefited the most among peers from AI-driven appetite for high-end chips and enterprise solid-state drives (eSSDs). I Photo: SK Hynix

"AI demand continues to grow above expectations... We expect next year's HBM shipments to more than double this year's," Head of DRAM Marketing Kim Kyu Hyun said in an earnings call.

However, SK Hynix shares dropped as much as 8.4% in morning trade, tracking declines in US shares such as Nvidia, as tech firms' results failed to meet sky-high investor expectations.

The world's second-largest memory chip maker has benefited the most among peers from AI-driven appetite for high-end chips and enterprise solid-state drives (eSSDs), following its early entry and large investment in the segments.

The company reported 5.47 trillion won ($3.96 billion) in operating profit for April-June, its highest since the third quarter of 2018.

The figure compared with a loss of 2.9 trillion won a year earlier and was in line with the LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted toward analysts who are more consistently accurate. Revenue rose 125% to a record 16.4 trillion won.