Nvidia supplier SK Hynix posts record second-quarter profit and revenue on strong AI memory demand

South Korea's SK Hynix connected Thursday posted grounds operating nett and revenue in the 2nd quarter, driven by sustained request for its precocious bandwidth representation utilized successful artificial quality technology. 

Here are SK Hynix's second-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are much consistently accurate: 

• Revenue: 22.23 trillion won ($16.17 billion) vs. 20.56 trillion won
• Operating profit: 9.21 trillion won vs. 9 trillion won

Revenue roseate implicit 35% successful the June 4th compared with the aforesaid play a twelvemonth earlier, portion operating nett roseate astir 69%, twelvemonth connected year.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, gross roseate 26%, portion operating nett jumped 24%.

SK Hynix makes representation chips that are utilized to store information and tin beryllium recovered successful everything from servers to user devices specified arsenic smartphones and laptops.

The institution said successful a connection that it enjoyed beardown request and favorable pricing conditions successful the archetypal fractional of the year. It added that determination was a debased likelihood of crisp request corrections for the remainder of 2025, owed to unchangeable lawsuit inventory levels and expected request from caller merchandise launches.

SK Hynix's enactment successful dynamic random entree representation — a benignant of semiconductor representation commonly recovered successful PCs, workstations and servers — has challenged rival Samsung Electronics' presumption successful the representation space.

The company's shares were up 1.3%, having risen implicit 3% successful aboriginal trade.

Much of SK Hynix's caller occurrence successful this country tin beryllium credited to its concern successful precocious bandwidth memory, oregon HBM — a benignant of DRAM utilized for artificial quality computing. SK Hynix has established itself arsenic the planetary person successful HBM, supplying clients specified arsenic U.S. AI darling Nvidia. 

"Demand for AI representation continued to grow, driven by assertive AI investments from large tech companies," Song Hyun-jong, president and caput of the Corporate Center astatine SK Hynix, said successful the net call. 

The institution expects this concern to proceed to thrust steadfast request maturation successful the AI server market, contempt macro uncertainty, with request for general-purpose servers besides expected to grow. 

Further improvement of AI agents with enhanced reasoning models volition necessitate much high-performance memory, according to Song, who added that the proliferation of AI successful the PC and smartphone marketplace volition boost request further. 

"Additionally, ongoing investments by governments and corporations for solving AI are apt to go a caller agelong word operator of AI representation demand," Song said.

The institution expects to treble HBM income for the afloat twelvemonth compared to 2024 — they contributed 77% to its second-quarter revenue.

As SK Hynix's HBM income rise, it is besides readying to implicit preparations for wide accumulation of its next-generation memory, HBM4, earlier the extremity of this year.

SK Hynix said it expected its superior expenditure successful 2025 to increase, with "proactive investment" needed to guarantee enactment for its HBM customers successful 2026.

In the archetypal quarter, SK Hynix's occurrence successful HBM had seen the institution overtake rival Samsung successful the planetary DRAM marketplace for the archetypal time, according to Counterpoint Research.

A report from the probe steadfast earlier this period recovered that SK Hynix had matched Samsung's combined DRAM and NAND revenues successful the 2nd quarter, with some present vying for the apical presumption successful the planetary representation market. NAND is simply a benignant of flash representation that is utilized to store information successful assorted devices. 

Samsung and U.S.-based representation shaper Micron Technology are some seeking to drawback up to SK Hynix successful the HBM space.

Micron is deploying some of its precocious products for usage with Nvidia and different customers specified arsenic AMD. Meanwhile, Samsung has reportedly been moving to get the latest mentation of its HBM chips certified by Nvidia. However, analysts expect SK Hynix's dominance to persist successful the short-term.

"As of now, I judge SK Hynix inactive holds its enactment successful the HBM contention ... contempt Samsung's and Micron's catch‑up efforts," said Ray Wang, probe manager of semiconductors, proviso concatenation and emerging exertion astatine The Futurum Group. 

"I expect this borderline to persist done the remainder of 2025 and widen into 2026," helium added.

On the net call, an SK Hynix typical had besides noted that uncertainty astir U.S. tariff policies led to accrued purchasing request successful the archetypal fractional of the year. Sales successful the 2nd fractional could beryllium impacted depending connected however aboriginal tariff policies evolve, the institution said. 

Amid tariff uncertainty, South Korea announced a 33 trillion won ($24.1 billion) enactment bundle for the country's semiconductor manufacture successful April, up astir a 4th from a bundle committed past year.