SEOUL, Jan 29, 2026, 04:17 KST
- Q4 operating profit jumped 137% to 19.2 trillion won ($13.5 billion), beating an LSEG SmartEstimate of 17.7 trillion won
- SK Hynix said it will cancel 15.3 million treasury shares worth about 12.2 trillion won; shares rose 9% in after-hours trading
- The company said it will commit $10 billion to a new U.S. entity focused on AI-related investments
SK Hynix said fourth-quarter operating profit surged to a record and beat forecasts, and it announced its biggest-ever share cancellation, sending its stock up 9% in after-hours trade. The South Korean memory-chip maker also said the artificial intelligence boom would keep driving rapid growth in memory demand. Reuters
The results land as data-centre spending keeps reshaping the chip cycle, pushing up prices for both cutting-edge and “commodity” memory used in servers and devices. Investors have been watching whether AI demand can offset softer patches in PCs and smartphones, where buying slows quickly when component prices spike.
They also sharpen the fight inside memory chips. SK Hynix has been out in front in high-bandwidth memory — stacks of DRAM that sit next to AI processors to move data faster — while rivals chase capacity and yields.
The company logged a 137% jump in Q4 operating profit to 19.2 trillion won ($13.5 billion), compared with 8.1 trillion won a year earlier. LSEG’s SmartEstimate — a consensus that weights analysts with a stronger forecasting record — put the quarter at 17.7 trillion won.
For full-year 2025, SK hynix reported revenue of 97.1467 trillion won and operating profit of 47.2063 trillion won, with net profit of 42.9479 trillion won, and said it would pay an additional 1 trillion won dividend. It also said total FY2025 dividends would reach 2.1 trillion won, or 3,000 won per share. Skhynix
Song Hyun Jong, president and head of the corporate center, said the company would keep balancing investment, financial stability and returns. “We will strengthen our role not merely as a product supplier, but as a core infrastructure partner in the AI era,” he said.
SK Hynix’s operating margin in the fourth quarter reached 58%, The Korea Times reported, comparing it to margins at other major chip players in the supply chain. Co
Macquarie Equity Research estimated SK Hynix holds a 61% share of the HBM market, Reuters reported. SK Hynix said its HBM sales more than doubled in 2025, and it said mass production of next-generation HBM products is moving ahead.
The upswing has spread beyond premium AI memory. Contract prices for 16-gigabyte DDR5 DRAM — a mainstream memory used widely in computers — more than quadrupled from a year earlier, market tracker TrendForce said, with contract prices seen rising another 55% to 60% in the current quarter, according to Reuters.
Separately, SK hynix said it will commit $10 billion to a new U.S. entity, tentatively named “AI Company,” and will set it up through a restructuring of its California-based SSD unit Solidigm, with funds deployed on a capital-call basis. Skhynix
Still, the company flagged weak spots. SK Hynix said orders for memory used in PCs and smartphones would likely lag overall market growth because higher prices and tight supply can curb demand, even as chipmakers prioritise AI datacentre customers.
Competition is also tightening. Macquarie predicted a tougher year ahead, with SK Hynix’s HBM share seen sliding to 53% as rival Samsung Electronics moves to close the gap, Reuters reported.
