Performance indicators fell short of expectations, and SK hynix’s stock price suffered significant shocks
On July 28, South Korean semiconductor giant SK Hynix released its second quarter financial report for 2026. Although driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI), the company's quarterly operating revenue and operating profit both achieved substantial year-on-year growth. However, as many core financial indicators fell short of consensus market expectations, the company's stock price suffered significant fluctuations in trading on the next day, closing down 9.6%. Financial report data shows that SK Hynix achieved operating income of 79.32 trillion won (approximately US$54.55 billion) in the second quarter, a year-on-year increase of 257% and a month-on-month increase of 51%; operating profit was 60.54 trillion won, a year-on-year increase of 557% and a month-on-month increase of 61%. Although the two indicators hit record highs, they were still lower than analysts' consensus forecasts of 84 trillion won in revenue and 64 trillion won in operating profit. In addition, the company's cumulative operating income in the first half of this year exceeded the 100 trillion won mark for the first time. SK Hynix pointed out that the continued expansion of global AI infrastructure investment has driven strong demand for high-performance server storage products. During the second quarter, the company's shipments of high value-added products such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM), AI server DRAM and enterprise-grade solid-state drives (SSD) increased significantly, driving product prices higher, and gross profit margin rose to 83% in the quarter. In terms of next-generation technology research and development and production capacity layout, SK Hynix has officially launched batch shipments of HBM4 products in the second quarter and completed the delivery of HBM4E samples. In the field of NAND flash memory, the company is accelerating its transformation to advanced processes. It is expected that 321-layer NAND products will account for about 50% of its local production capacity by the end of this year. Regarding subsequent production capacity and investment planning, SK Hynix said that capital expenditure this year is expected to reach a high range of nearly 50 trillion won. The company will make overall use of the existing production bases in Icheon and Yongin, and further expand the NAND flash memory and advanced packaging production capacity of the Cheongju base. At the same time, as a core supplier of global technology giants, SK Hynix has recently reached a multi-year cooperation agreement with the US company NVIDIA totaling more than 500 billion US dollars to ensure long-term stable supply.