Illustration of the SK Hynix firm emblem seen displayed on a smartphone display screen.
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South Korea’s SK Hynix on Thursday topped quarterly income and working revenue estimates, as demand for its excessive bandwidth reminiscence choices utilized in synthetic intelligence chipsets stayed robust.
Listed below are SK Hynix’s first-quarter outcomes versus LSEG SmartEstimates:
- Income: 17.64 trillion gained ($12.36 billion) vs. 17.26 trillion gained
- Working revenue: 7.44 trillion gained vs. 6.62 trillion gained
Income rose about 42% within the March quarter in contrast with the identical interval a yr earlier, whereas working revenue surged 158%, yr on yr.
On a quarter-on-quarter foundation, income dropped 11%, whereas working revenue fell 8% from a report excessive within the December quarter.
SK Hynix is a number one provider of dynamic random entry reminiscence — a kind of semiconductor reminiscence present in PCs, workstations and servers that’s used to retailer information and program code.
The corporate warned that macroeconomic uncertainties together with U.S. tariff coverage have created demand volatility that may affect the second half of the yr.
“Whereas reciprocal tariff measures between some international locations are presently suspended, there are rising issues that tariff might be utilized to semiconductor merchandise,” an SK Hynix government stated in a Thursday earnings name. The corporate expects a comparatively restricted affect from tariffs on its synthetic intelligence server demand.
In the meantime, demand from shopper electronics similar to PCs and smartphones is anticipated to learn from the launch of latest merchandise that function AI functionalities this yr.
In its earnings launch, SK Hynix stated that its first-quarter income demonstrated AI’s affect within the reminiscence market.
The reminiscence chipmaker expects Massive Tech’s spending on AI to proceed, with the ecosystem’s growth to be pushed by open-source AI mannequin choices, and “sovereign AI tasks” that may stoke reminiscence demand.
“With improvement price reducing, initiatives for AI improvement have surged, which has led to a pointy improve in demand,” an organization government stated.
SK Hynix cited DeepSeek’s open-source R1 reasoning mannequin, which achieved aggressive efficiency with restricted {hardware} sources earlier this yr, for instance of a catalyst for AI improvement.
The corporate has benefitted from a increase in AI servers as a key provider of excessive bandwidth reminiscence, or HBM — a kind of DRAM utilized in synthetic intelligence servers — to purchasers such because the U.S. AI darling Nvidia. Micron Know-how and Samsung Electronics are the opposite gamers within the house.
A report from Counterpoint Analysis earlier this month stated that SK Hynix had captured 70% of the HBM market by income share within the first quarter.
This HBM dominance helped it overtake Samsung within the total DRAM marketplace for the primary time ever, with a 36% international market share as in comparison with Samsung’s 34%, the report added.
“The announcement that our firm ranked first within the DRAM market in Q1 2025 … displays that our portfolio methods that centered on extremely worthwhile AI reminiscence was effectively executed,” an SK Hynix consultant stated.
The corporate introduced plans on Thursday to construct a brand new fabrication facility in Cheongju, South Korea, that may broaden its manufacturing of next-generation DRAM, together with HBM.
Development of the fab is anticipated to start on the finish of April with an intention to be accomplished for early mass manufacturing in November 2025. The corporate stated its whole funding within the new manufacturing base can be greater than 20 trillion gained over the long run.
SK Hynix shares fell 0.9% in Asia.
