SK Hynix reported an exponential surge in profits, but failed to meet market expectations, and its stock price fell sharply
Special topic: Focus on the second quarter financial report of US stocks in 2026 Benefiting from the demand for AI, SK Hynix’s performance once again hit a record high; Second quarter revenue and operating profit both fell short of market expectations; Revenue more than doubled year-on-year. Affected by the exponential growth in revenue and profit in the second quarter, it still failed to meet analysts' high expectations for this popular AI chip company. SK Hynix's stock price plunged sharply on Wednesday. The following is a comparison of SK hynix's second-quarter results with Refinitiv Intelligence's consensus forecast (the forecast is weighted based on analyst estimates with higher accuracy in past forecasts): Revenue: 79.32 trillion won (equivalent to US$54.55 billion), market expectations were 84 trillion won Operating profit: 60.54 trillion won, market expected 64 trillion won The stock's largest intraday drop reached 15%, and the closing decline narrowed to 9.6%; the company's U.S. Listed depository receipts were last down 3.4%. The company's financial report shows that in the second quarter as of the end of June, revenue soared 257% year-on-year, and operating profit soared nearly 557% year-on-year; quarter-on-quarter, revenue rose 51% and operating profit increased 61%. The company stated that the expansion of global AI infrastructure investment has brought continued strong demand, and the prices of high-performance storage products adapted to AI servers have hit new highs, driving overall price increases. The company's cumulative revenue in the first half of the year exceeded 100 trillion won for the first time, setting a record since the establishment of the factory, which intuitively confirms the strong procurement demand of the AI industry. SK Hynix said that the scale of capital expenditure in 2026 will be close to more than 40 trillion won; its Nasdaq American Depository Receipt (ADR) was listed early this month, and the company will use this as a basis to improve its overseas capital layout. The company stated that it will give priority to investing in growth businesses in the future, stabilize and healthy financial structure, and continue to evaluate shareholder return plans such as dividends and buybacks. In terms of production capacity planning, the company plans to make full use of the two existing factories in Icheon and Yongin to maximize production capacity; at the same time, it will increase its capacity in the Cheongju factory to expand NAND flash memory production capacity and advanced packaging production lines. Josh Gilbert, chief analyst of eToro Asia Pacific, commented: The company’s 83% gross profit margin is enough to prove that the brand still has strong pricing power. "Only markets where supply exceeds demand and customers are scrambling to stock up will see such high gross profits; industries with shrinking demand are unlikely to have such performance." The prices of DRAM memory and NAND flash memory both increased quarter-on-quarter this quarter. The company focuses on shipping high-value-added products such as HBM high-bandwidth memory, AI server-specific DRAM, and enterprise-grade solid-state drives, achieving top profitability in the industry. AI services continue to generate revenue, major technology companies are increasing their computing power infrastructure, the purchase of memory chips is expected to continue, and customer stocking orders are still increasing. SK hynix’s self-developed HBM4 demonstrates differentiated technological advantages and outstanding energy efficiency and cost advantages. The company has shipped HBM4 in batches in the second quarter, and plans to further ramp up and expand production in the second half of the year; it has completed the delivery of HBM4E samples in the first half of the year. In the NAND flash memory business, SK Hynix accelerates the iteration of advanced processes and develops large-capacity and high-performance product lines. At present, 321-layer flash memory has become the company's main mass production category, and the target is to increase the proportion of this product to South Korea's total domestic production capacity to about 50% by the end of the year. This South Korean storage giant specializes in memory chips, and its product supply covers various consumer electronics hardware such as data centers and smartphones. Nvidia and other large U.S. technology companies are its core customers; the two parties recently reached a multi-year long-term supply agreement worth more than US$500 billion, and the scale of cooperation has been upgraded again.