SK Hynix Doubles 2025 Profit as AI Memory Shortages Fuel Record Earnings

SK Hynix reported record full-year results for 2025, with operating profit more than doubling from a year earlier as shortages of artificial intelligence-related memory chips drove prices sharply higher. The company also delivered record revenue and profit in the December quarter, exceeding market forecasts.

For the fourth quarter, SK Hynix posted revenue of 32.83 trillion won ($23 billion), above expectations of 32.13 trillion won, while operating profit reached 19.17 trillion won, comfortably beating estimates of 17.73 trillion won, according to LSEG SmartEstimates. Revenue surged about 66% year on year, while operating profit jumped 137% over the same period.

The strong quarterly performance capped a record year for the memory maker. Full-year revenue climbed nearly 50% from 2024 to 97.15 trillion won, while annual operating profit rose to 47.21 trillion won, more than double the previous year’s level. The company said its revenue from high-bandwidth memory more than doubled during the year.

SK Hynix has been a major beneficiary of the global AI boom, supplying HBM chips that are critical for AI data center servers. These chips fall under the broader dynamic random access memory (DRAM) category, which is widely used across servers, PCs, smartphones and other electronics. Demand for HBM has significantly outstripped supply, creating shortages that have rippled across the wider memory market.

“We see SK Hynix as one of the biggest AI winners in Asia, driven by its leadership in HBM and strong overall memory competitiveness,” said Ray Wang, an analyst at SemiAnalysis. He added that beyond HBM, commodity DRAM is likely to remain a key earnings driver as structural supply constraints continue to support margins.

The company also announced additional dividends of 1 trillion won, or 1,500 won per share, lifting its total dividend payout for fiscal 2025 to 2.1 trillion won. In a separate move aimed at enhancing shareholder value, SK Hynix said it plans to cancel treasury shares worth 12.24 trillion won.

Shares in SK Hynix jumped earlier this week after local media reported that the company had become the exclusive supplier of advanced memory chips for a new AI processor developed by Microsoft, though the company has not officially confirmed the report.

Memory prices are expected to remain elevated into next year, as new capacity expansions take time to come online. SK Hynix will discuss its outlook in more detail during an earnings call on Thursday. Rival Samsung, which competes closely with SK Hynix in both conventional memory and HBM, is also scheduled to report earnings this week.