SK hynix logs record Q3 operating profit of $62.8 bil.
SK hynix headquarters at Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, May 26 / Yonhap
SK hynix on Wednesday reported 83.33 trillion won ($62.8 billion) in third-quarter operating profit, setting a new quarterly earnings record.
The company said in a regulatory filing that its revenue and operating profit for the July-September period stood at 104.6 trillion won and 83.33 trillion won, respectively. Revenue grew 328 percent year-on-year, while operating profit surged 632 percent.
It was the first time the company's quarterly revenue surpassed 100 trillion won. Its operating profit margin reached 80 percent during the three-month period.
Brokerages' consensus was 98.23 trillion won in sales and 76.96 trillion won in operating profit.
The company said growing shipments of high bandwidth memory 4 (HBM4) and a sharp increase in server memory sales drove growth in the company's DRAM business. In NAND, sales of enterprise solid-state drives (eSSDs) also increased, sustaining growth across high-value-added products for data centers.
In a press release, the company anticipated that the global memory supply shortage would likely persist through 2030, as productivity gains and new revenue opportunities driven by artificial intelligence (AI) have created a cycle of growing AI usage and expanding infrastructure investment. The company also projected steady growth in the global AI data center infrastructure market, as AI investment is expanding beyond a handful of major companies to businesses across industries and national governments.
SK hynix said it plans to further advance its manufacturing processes next year. The company will increase the share of its sixth-generation 10-nanometer-class (1c) DRAM process and ramp up production capacity at its M15X plant to full capacity by the end of the year to boost HBM4 output. It expects HBM4 to overtake the previous generation HBM3E in both shipment volume and revenue in the fourth quarter, becoming its main HBM product.
The company also stressed that more than 50 percent of its production capacity for 2027 and 2028 is covered by long-term agreements, saying it has signed such agreements with 14 major global cloud service providers.
To address the mismatch between its share price and earnings performance, SK hynix also unveiled a shareholder return plan. For the 2026 fiscal year, the company plans to return approximately 100 trillion won to shareholders, including at least 30 trillion won in cash dividends and more than 60 trillion won through share buybacks and cancellations, including the recently completed 40 trillion won repurchase program.
During its board meeting, Wednesday, the company approved a third-quarter cash dividend of 14 trillion won and a share repurchase of 20 trillion won. The third-quarter dividend is 20,000 won per share, including a 10,000 won dividend reflecting improved earnings and a 10,000 won special dividend for sharing the gains from the company's investments into Kioxia.