SK Hynix Slides 10% After $64 Billion Profit Misses AI-Fueled Expectations
Updated
Updated · Yahoo Finance · Jul 30
SK Hynix Slides 10% After $64 Billion Profit Misses AI-Fueled Expectations
3 articles · Updated · Yahoo Finance · Jul 30
Summary
SK Hynix shares closed down 9.6% in Seoul after swinging as much as 19.6% lower, even though the memory-chip maker posted a record 93.9 trillion won, or about $64 billion, in quarterly net profit.
That profit was 13 times a year earlier and more than the company earned in the previous five years combined, but it still fell short of bullish expectations and revived worries about how long the AI spending boom can last.
The selloff spread across Asian memory-chip makers: Samsung Electronics and Japan's Kioxia also fell, despite SK Hynix having recently raised more than $26 billion in its Nasdaq debut and unveiled a $500 billion Nvidia partnership.
Shares steadied somewhat on Thursday after Samsung reported a 14-fold profit jump to $48.6 billion and said long-term data-center deals should support demand for AI memory chips for years.
With AI growth constrained by memory bandwidth, how severely will advanced packaging bottlenecks throttle SK Hynix's future revenue?
Could heavily funded Chinese chipmakers eventually overcome export controls to disrupt the massive profits of the current HBM triopoly?
As HBM stacks grow taller, can the industry solve fragile yield issues before they critically stall next-generation AI infrastructure?
SK Hynix’s $43.7 Billion Q2 2026 Profit: AI Memory Boom, Nasdaq IPO, and the Global Semiconductor Power Shift
Overview
In Q2 2026, SK Hynix reached record profits and margins by focusing on high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and meeting soaring AI data center demand, which drove memory chip prices sharply higher. This success fueled a historic Nasdaq IPO, but strict limits on U.S. ADR creation led to volatile stock premiums. As manufacturers shifted resources from consumer electronics to AI, general-purpose memory supply tightened, causing massive price spikes across the market. Meanwhile, South Korea’s exports and stock market surged, but extreme concentration in SK Hynix and Samsung created systemic risks, with investor anxiety over future memory oversupply triggering sharp market corrections.