SK Hynix Caps Off Bumper Year With Record Quarter

By Kwanwoo Jun

Nvidia supplier SK Hynix posted record earnings for the final quarter of 2025 as the global artificial-intelligence boom continued to fuel strong demand for memory chips, buoying profits for major manufacturers.

The world's second-largest memory chip maker supplies high-bandwidth-memory products to Nvidia, and surging demand for such chips, which are a crucial component of AI accelerators and carry higher margins than conventional memory products, has been a major earnings driver for the company.

Net profit for the October-December period was a record 15.246 trillion won, equivalent to $10.66 billion, the company said Wednesday. That was 90% higher than the year-ago figure and topped the previous quarter's high of 12.598 trillion won. Analysts had expected 13.989 trillion won, according to a FactSet consensus.

Revenue also reached a record, surging 66% from a year earlier to 32.827 trillion won in the fourth quarter. Operating profit more than doubled to a record 19.170 trillion won.

For the full year, revenue rose 47% to 97.147 trillion won, with net profit more than doubling to 42.948 trillion won. Operating profit doubled to 47.206 trillion won, surpassing larger chip-making rival Samsung Electronics' estimated 43.530 trillion won for 2025.

Investors have continued to pile into SK Hynix's stock on optimism about its leading position in the AI memory market, sending shares 5.1% higher on Wednesday ahead of the earnings report. The stock has risen nearly 30% year to date, after nearly quadrupling in 2025.

The share-price gains come as SK Hynix stands to be a major beneficiary of the AI frenzy driving powerful earnings growth at chip makers. Big global technology companies have continued to pour billions of dollars into building AI data centers that require a huge volume of advanced computing chips.

Amid surging demand for AI chips, the company earlier this month said it would build a $13 billion chip packaging plant in South Korea by the end of 2027 to expand its output capacity. It expects the global HBM market to grow an average 33% annually through 2030.

Write to Kwanwoo Jun at kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com

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January 28, 2026 03:33 ET (08:33 GMT)