SK Hynix Posts Record Q3 Profit, Pledges $75B to Shareholders

SK Hynix reported third-quarter operating profit of 83.33 trillion won, up 632% year over year, on revenue of 104.62 trillion won. That is the first time in company history a single quarter has cleared 100 trillion. CNBC's writeup notes both figures beat LSEG SmartEstimate expectations of 76.72 trillion operating profit and 98.34 trillion revenue. Operating margin finished at 80%.

The payout is where the company chose to put the surplus. "The dividend for third quarter has been decided at KRW 20,000 per share, totaling KRW 14 trillion, consisting of a KRW 10,000 dividend reflecting earnings improvement and a KRW 10,000 special dividend to share the investment results from Kioxia," the company said. On top of that, SK Hynix will buy back 20 trillion won in shares, half of which will be cancelled this year, after completing a previously announced 40 trillion won buyback. The Korea Times put the aggregate pledge at roughly $75 billion in shareholder returns.

By product line, the company said "HBM4 entered full-scale mass production in the third quarter and is expected to overtake HBM3E in the fourth quarter." DRAM results were driven by a significant increase in sales of server DDR5. Average selling prices for DRAM rose at a high-20% rate versus the prior quarter; NAND rose at a mid-20% rate.

One line did not beat. Net profit landed around 40 trillion won, well below the roughly 55 trillion estimate.

This is the latest datapoint in a run of memory and accelerator economics we've been tracking across AI infrastructure and chips coverage.