SK hynix said on the 23rd it posted first-quarter revenue of 52.5763 trillion won and operating profit of 37.6103 trillion won, for an operating margin of 72%. Net profit was 40.3459 trillion won, a net margin of 77%.
On a quarterly basis, revenue topped 50 trillion won for the first time. Operating profit and the operating margin were also the highest since the company was founded, at 37.6 trillion won and 72%, respectively. Operating profit roughly doubled from the previous quarter, underscoring a sharp improvement in profitability.
“Despite the seasonal off-peak in the first quarter, demand remained strong as AI infrastructure investment expanded,” SK hynix said, adding that it “continued its earnings uptrend by increasing sales of high value-added products such as HBM, high-capacity server DRAM modules and eSSD.”
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the first quarter rose 19.4 trillion won from the end of the previous quarter to 54.3 trillion won. Borrowings fell 2.9 trillion won to 19.3 trillion won, resulting in net cash of 35 trillion won, the company said.
SK hynix said it sees AI evolving from training large models to an “agentic AI” stage, where real-time inference is repeatedly performed across a range of service environments, broadening the base of memory demand across both DRAM and NAND.
It also said the spread of memory-efficiency technologies should improve the economics of AI services and expand overall service scale, further supporting memory demand. On that basis, it forecast a favorable pricing environment for both DRAM and NAND to continue.
The company said it will keep developing and supplying new products across DRAM and NAND to meet increasingly diverse memory demand.
For high-bandwidth memory, it said it will further strengthen overall execution capabilities integrating performance, yield, quality and supply stability. In DRAM, it will step up supply of LPDDR6 using the world’s first 10-nanometer-class sixth-generation (1c) process, and of the 192-gigabyte SOCAMM2, which began mass production this month based on the same process.
In NAND, it said it has begun supplying the consumer SSD (cSSD) “PQC21,” which applies CTF-based 321-layer quad-level cell (QLC) technology. It added it will respond flexibly to AI demand with an enterprise SSD (eSSD) lineup spanning high-performance triple-level cell (TLC) and high-capacity QLC across the full eSSD range.
It also said it plans to strengthen competitiveness in AI data center and AI PC storage markets by leveraging synergies with Solidigm, where it has strengths in high-capacity QLC eSSD.
SK hynix said that as customer demand continues to exceed supply capacity, securing the ability to supply in line with structural demand growth in the AI era has emerged as a key competitive edge.
It said this year’s investment will rise sharply from last year, driven by the M15X ramp-up, infrastructure preparations centered on the Yongin cluster, and securing key equipment such as EUV tools.
“We will strategically expand our production base to respond proactively to mid- to long-term demand growth,” SK hynix said. “Through investment that reflects demand visibility, we will secure both supply stability and financial soundness.”
* This article has been translated by AI.
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