Mark of SK Hynix Inc. at the company’s office in Seongnam, South Korea on Monday, April 22, 2024. SK Hynix is scheduled to release earnings data on April 25. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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South Korea SK Hynixone of the world’s largest makers of memory chips, reported record quarterly earnings on Thursday, supported by strong sales of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in generative artificial intelligence.
Here are SK Hynix’s Q4 results compared to the LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted by analysts’ forecasts that are more consistently accurate:
- Revenue: 19.77 trillion won ($13.7 billion) vs. 19.91 trillion won
- Operating profit: 8.08 trillion won ($5.6 billion) vs. 8.02 trillion won
Operating profit in the October-December quarter rose 15% from last year to another record, as did revenue, which rose 12%.
The South Korean chip maker has profited from the artificial intelligence server boom and is a key supplier to Nvidia.
“SK Hynix emphasized that with long-term strong demand for AI memory, the company has achieved [an] all-time top results through world-leading HBM technology and profit-driven operations,” the company said in its earnings announcement.
HBM is a type of dynamic direct access memory, or DRAM, in which chips are stacked vertically to save space and reduce power consumption. The technology is often used in products such as laptops and personal computers.
SK Hynix, Micron technology and Samsung Electronics are three top manufacturers of HBM chips.
The strong fourth-quarter numbers cap off a year in which the company hit record annual revenues, surpassing the previous high of 2022 by more than 21 trillion won.
Meanwhile, operating profit beat the record set in 2018 during the “super boom” in the semiconductor industry.
