The race for AI chips keeps producing numbers that are hard to digest. SK Hynix, the Korean memory chipmaker and one of Nvidia's key suppliers, reported the best results in its history this morning: third-quarter revenue of 104.6 trillion won (about $78.9 billion), above the 100 trillion won mark for the first time. The stock jumped more than 8% in Seoul.
SK Hynix results in numbers
Revenue grew 31.9% from the previous quarter and 4.3 times from a year earlier. Operating profit reached 83.3 trillion won, above analysts' expectations of 76.7 trillion won, and the operating margin was about 80%, an almost unprecedented figure in the chip industry. Net profit, however, fell 58% from the previous quarter to 39.8 trillion won, mainly because of investment valuation losses and currency losses.
Why memory chips are in such demand
The main engine is HBM, high-bandwidth memory attached to the graphics processors that run AI models. Every new data center from Microsoft, Google, Meta or SpaceX needs huge amounts of it, and SK Hynix leads the field. According to the company, its DRAM and HBM output is almost sold out through 2029, and long-term agreements already cover more than half of 2027 and 2028 capacity.
A gift to shareholders
Alongside the results, the company announced about 100 trillion won in shareholder returns for 2026, including at least 30 trillion won in dividends and 60 trillion won in share buybacks and cancellations. Last week we reported the company was considering a special dividend; now the scale is official, though the company notes the figures are still preliminary.
What it means for the chip market
SK Hynix's results arrive on the day Microsoft and Alphabet report, and support the view that AI infrastructure investment is still flowing at full force. For chipmakers and tech stocks in general, it is a sign that demand is not slowing. The risk, as always, is that the whole industry depends on cloud giants continuing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
