The SK Hynix logo appears on a mobile phone screen in this illustrated photo taken on January 30, 2023 in Krakow, Poland.
Jakub Porzycki | Null Photo | Getty Images
South Korea’s SK Hynix, one of the world’s largest memory chip makers, posted its best quarterly profit on Thursday, driven by strong demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in generative AI.
Below is SK Hynix’s third quarter performance compared to the LSEG SmartEstimate, which emphasizes more consistently accurate analyst forecasts.
Revenue: 17.57 trillion won ($12.7 billion) vs. 18.11 trillion won Operating profit: 7.3 trillion won ($5.08 billion) vs. 6.8 trillion won
Operating profit for the July-September period hit its highest level, recovering from a loss of 1.8 trillion won in the same period last year.
Quarterly sales were 9.1 trillion won, an increase of about 94% year-on-year.
The South Korean semiconductor giant is a major supplier to Nvidia and has benefited from the boom in artificial intelligence servers.
SK Hynix said in its earnings call on Thursday that demand for AI memory, especially from data center customers, will remain strong in the third quarter, allowing the company to expand sales of premium products such as HBM and eSSD, which are core components of AI chips. Ta.
HBM is a type of dynamic random access memory, also known as DRAM, whose chips are stacked vertically to save space and reduce power consumption. SK Hynix, Micron Technology, and Samsung Electronics are the three major manufacturers of HBM chips.
HBM product sales are up more than 70% quarter-over-quarter and more than tripled year-over-year, and the company expects continued growth.
“Demand for memory for AI servers such as HBM and eSSDs has increased significantly this year, and the company expects this trend to continue next year,” the company said in a press release.
The company says generative AI continues to evolve and major tech companies continue to invest in developing the technology.
SK Hynix also predicted that with the advent of AI-optimized devices, demand from the PC and mobile consumer products market will be on a steady growth trajectory next year.
The company announced last month that it had begun mass production of the latest version of the HBM chip, aiming to ship it by the end of the year.
SK Hynix stock initially fell 0.4% when the market opened in South Korea on Thursday, but has since recovered to rise 1.3%.
