Signage at the SK Hynix Inc. booth at the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, China, Thursday, November 6, 2025. The exhibition runs until November 10. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
South Korean company SK Hynix on Wednesday reported a record annual profit for 2025, more than doubling its operating profit, as a shortage of AI-related memory chips pushed prices higher and helped it beat market expectations.
The memory chip maker also posted record revenue and profit in the December quarter, as it vies with rival Samsung for the title of the world’s top memory producer.
At the same time, SK Hynix announced additional dividends of 1 trillion won, or 1,500 won per share, bringing its total dividend for fiscal 2025 to 2.1 trillion won.
Here are the company’s quarterly results compared to LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted based on more precise analyst forecasts:
- Revenue: 32,827 billion won ($23 billion) versus 32,132 billion won expected
- Operating profit: 19.17 trillion won versus 17.729 trillion won expected
Revenue rose about 66% in the December quarter from a year earlier, while operating profit jumped 137% over the same period.
SK Hynix makes memory chips used to store data, found in everything from servers to consumer devices such as smartphones and laptops.
The company has benefited from the rise of artificial intelligence as a key supplier of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, used in AI data center chipsets like those of Nvidia.
HBM falls into the broader category of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, a type of solid-state memory used to store data and program code that can be found in PCs, workstations, and servers.
SK Hynix said its HBM revenue more than doubled in 2025. This helped it achieve a record revenue of 97.147 billion won for the year, up nearly 50% from 2024. Meanwhile, its annual operating profit reached 47.206 billion won, more than double that of the previous year.
“We view SK Hynix as one of the biggest AI winners in Asia, driven by its HBM leadership and strong overall memory competitiveness,” said Ray Wang, an analyst at SemiAnalysis specializing in memory and the AI supply chain.
“Beyond HBM, commodity DRAMs will be a key earnings driver this year, supported by rapidly growing margins and demand resulting from a structural supply shortage,” he added.
Demand for HBM has far outstripped supply, triggering shortages across the memory sector, including for less advanced memory chips used in consumer electronics and electric vehicles.
As a result of this environment, memory prices have skyrocketed, and shortages are expected to last into next year, as companies like SK Hynix wait for further capacity expansions to come online.
The company also announced plans on Wednesday to cancel treasury shares worth 12.24 trillion won, a move aimed at increasing shareholder value. The announcement follows a rise in the memory maker’s stock price on Tuesday after local media reported that it had become the exclusive supplier of advanced memory chips for a new AI processor developed by Microsoft.
SK Hynix will hold an earnings conference call with investors on Thursday. Samsung, SK Hynix’s main competitor in the memory market, including HBM, is also expected to release its results on the same day.
