Illustration of the SK Hynix brand displayed on a telephone display.
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South Korea’s SK Hynix on Thursday topped quarterly income and working profit estimates, as demand for its excessive bandwidth reminiscence choices utilized in synthetic intelligence chipsets stayed robust.
Listed here are SK Hynix’s first-quarter outcomes versus LSEG SmartEstimates, that are weighted towards forecasts from analysts who’re extra persistently correct:
- Income: 17.64 trillion received ($12.36 billion) vs. 17.26 trillion received
- Working profit: 7.44 trillion received vs. 6.62 trillion received
Income rose about 42% within the March quarter in contrast with the identical interval a 12 months earlier, whereas working profit surged 158%, 12 months on 12 months.
On a quarter-on-quarter foundation, income dropped 11%, whereas working profit fell 8% from a file excessive within the December quarter.
SK Hynix is a number one supplier of dynamic random entry reminiscence — a sort of semiconductor reminiscence present in PCs, workstations and servers that’s used to retailer information and program code.
The corporate warned that macroeconomic uncertainties together with U.S. tariff coverage have created demand volatility that may impression the second half of the 12 months.
“Whereas reciprocal tariff measures between some international locations are at the moment suspended, there are rising issues that tariff might be utilized to semiconductor merchandise,” an SK Hynix government mentioned in a Thursday earnings name. The corporate expects a comparatively restricted impression from tariffs on its synthetic intelligence server demand.
In the meantime, demand from client electronics resembling PCs and smartphones is anticipated to learn from the launch of new merchandise that characteristic AI functionalities this 12 months.
In its earnings launch, SK Hynix mentioned that its first-quarter earnings demonstrated AI’s impression within the reminiscence market.
The reminiscence chipmaker expects Huge Tech’s spending on AI to proceed, with the ecosystem’s enlargement to be pushed by open-source AI mannequin choices, and “sovereign AI tasks” that may stoke reminiscence demand.
“With growth value lowering, initiatives for AI growth have surged, which has led to a pointy improve in demand,” an organization government mentioned.
SK Hynix cited DeepSeek’s open-source R1 reasoning mannequin, which achieved aggressive efficiency with restricted {hardware} sources earlier this 12 months, for instance of a catalyst for AI growth.
The corporate has benefitted from a boom in AI servers as a key supplier of excessive bandwidth reminiscence, or HBM — a sort of DRAM utilized in synthetic intelligence servers — to purchasers such because the U.S. AI darling Nvidia. Micron Expertise and Samsung Electronics are the opposite gamers within the house.
A report from Counterpoint Analysis earlier this month mentioned that SK Hynix had captured 70% of the HBM market by income share within the first quarter.
This HBM dominance helped it overtake Samsung within the general DRAM marketplace for the primary time ever, with a 36% international market share as in comparison with Samsung’s 34%, the report added.
“The announcement that our firm ranked first within the DRAM market in Q1 2025 … displays that our portfolio methods that centered on extremely worthwhile AI reminiscence was properly executed,” an SK Hynix consultant mentioned.
The corporate introduced plans on Thursday to construct a brand new fabrication facility in Cheongju, South Korea, that may develop its manufacturing of next-generation DRAM, together with HBM.
Development of the fab is anticipated to start on the finish of April with an goal to be accomplished for early mass manufacturing in November 2025. The corporate mentioned its whole funding within the new manufacturing base can be greater than 20 trillion received over the long run.
Earlier this month, the South Korean authorities introduced a 33 trillion received assist package deal for its chips business. This was larger than the 26 trillion it dedicated final 12 months because the business faces the uncertainty posed by Washington’s international commerce tariffs.
SK Hynix shares fell 0.9% in Asia.
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