SKHY
Record quarter, inconvenient headline
SK Hynix turned in a monster quarter on Wednesday, with revenue jumping 257% year over year to a record 79.32 trillion won and operating profit soaring 557% to 60.54 trillion won. In other words: the AI memory party is still going, even if the profit line didn’t quite hit Wall Street’s target.
Why the market still cares
The annoying little asterisk? Operating profit landed below the 64 trillion won estimate, which is the sort of thing traders love to punish before they go back to buying the bigger story. Shares slipped in Seoul, and the ADRs got hit too, because apparently even record numbers can’t save you from expectations getting a little too spicy.
The AI buildout keeps getting bigger
What really matters here is what SK Hynix said next:
- 2026 capex is now expected to land at the high end of its 40 trillion won range
- DRAM shipments should rise about 10% in Q3
- NAND shipments are expected to increase about 3%
- DRAM demand for the full year is forecast to grow about 25%
- NAND demand is seen climbing about 18%
That’s not the language of a company pumping the brakes. It’s the opposite: SK Hynix is still spending into the AI memory wave, especially on HBM4, HBM4E, and expanded capacity at M15X and Yongin.
Big picture
For Micron and the rest of the memory gang, this is the kind of report that says the AI cycle still has legs — even if the market nitpicks the profit print in the short term. If demand keeps holding and supply stays tight, investors may care a lot more about capex and contract wins than one modest earnings miss.