SK Hynix doubles 2025 profit as AI memory shortages drive earnings beat
SK Hynix Inc. at the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, China, on Thursday, November 6, 2025. sign on the stand. The fair will continue until November 10. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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South Korea’s SK Hynix reported record profits for 2025 on Wednesday; The business more than doubled its earnings as a shortage of AI-related memory chips pushed up prices and helped it beat market expectations.
The memory maker also posted record revenue and profits in the December quarter as it competes with rival Samsung for the title of the world’s top memory maker.
The company also distributed an additional dividend of 1 trillion won, or 1,500 won per share, bringing its total dividend payment for fiscal 2025 to 2.1 trillion won.
Here are the company’s quarterly results compared to LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted by analysts’ estimates, which are more consistently accurate:
- Revenue: 32.827 trillion won ($23 billion) vs. 32.132 trillion won expected
- Operating profit: 19.17 trillion won, expected 17.729 trillion won
Revenues rose nearly 66% year-on-year in the December quarter, while operating profit rose 137% in the same period.
SK Hynix makes memory chips used to store data in everything from servers to consumer devices like smartphones and laptops.
The company has benefited from the boom in AI as a major supplier of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips used to power AI data center servers.
HBM falls into the broader category of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM (a type of semiconductor memory used to store data and program code that can be found in PCs, workstations, and servers).
HBM revenue more than doubles in 2025, SK Hynix said. This helped it generate a record revenue of 97.147 trillion won for the year, up nearly 50% from 2024. Meanwhile, annual operating profit more than doubled from the previous year, reaching 47.206 trillion won.
“We view SK hynix as one of the biggest AI winners in Asia thanks to its leadership in HBM and strong overall memory competitiveness,” said Ray Wang, an analyst focusing on the memory and AI supply chain at SemiAnalytics.
“Beyond HBM, commodity DRAM will be a critical earnings driver this year, supported by rapidly expanding margins and demand driven by structural supply shortages,” he added.
Demand for HBM has far outstripped supply, triggering shortages in the memory industry, including for less advanced memory chips used in consumer electronics and electric vehicles.
Memory prices are rising as a result of this environment, and shortages are expected to continue into next year as companies like SK Hynix await further capacity expansions to come online.
SK Hynix also announced plans on Wednesday to cancel treasury shares worth 12.24 trillion won in a move aimed at increasing shareholder value. The announcement comes after local media reported a surge in the memory maker’s share price on Tuesday. reported A new artificial intelligence processor developed by Microsoft has become the sole supplier of advanced memory chips, he said.
SK Hynix will hold an earnings call with investors on Thursday. Samsung, SK Hynix’s leading rival in the memory market, including HBM, will also report earnings today.
