Nvidia supplier SK Hynix quarterly earnings top estimates

South Korea SK Hynix Thors day, exceeded quarterly income and operational profits estimates, since the demand for their high -band memory offers used in artificial intelligence chips remained strong.

Here are the results of the first trimester of SK Hynix versus LSEG Smartstimates, which will get into the analysts forecasts that are more consistently precise:

• Revenue: 17.64 billion won ($ 12.36 billion) compared to 17.26 billion wones
• Operating benefit: 7.44 billion won compared to 6.62 billion wones

The income increased approximately 42% in the quarter of March compared to the same period of the previous year, while the operational profits increased by 158%, year after year.

In a quarterly base, income fell 11%, while operational profits fell 8% of a higher record in the quarter of December.

SK Hynix is ​​a leader or dynamic random access supplier: a type of semiconductor memory found on PC, work stations and servers that are used to store data and program code.

The company warned that macroeconomic uncertainties, including the United States tariff policy, have created demand volatility that will affect the second half of the year.

“While reciprocal rates measures are currently suspended between some countries, there are Conerns growing that the rate can be applied to semiconductor products,” said a SK Hynix executive in a profit call on Thursday. The company expects a relatively limited impact of tariffs on the demand of its artificial intelligence server.

Meanwhile, the demand for consumer electronics, such as PCs and smartphones, is expected to benefit from the launch of new products that present AI functionalities this year.

In its gains launch, SK Hynix said that his profits from the first quarter demonstrated AI’s impact on the memory market.

The memory chips manufacturer expects Big Tech spending in AI to continue, with the expansion of the ecosystem that is promoted by the offers of open source AI models and the “sovereign projects” that fake the demand for memory.

“With the decrease in development costs, initiatives for the development of AI have increased, which has led to a strong increase in demand,” said a company executive.

SK Hynix cited the Open -source R1 ratio model of Depseek, which achieved competitive performance with limited hardware resources earlier this year, as an example of a catalyst for the development of AI.

The company has benefited from an boom in AI servers as a key supplier of high bandwidth memory, or HBM, a type of dram used in artificial intelligence servers, customers such as the AI ​​Darling Nvidia in the United States. Microns and Samsung electronics They are the other players in space.

A Counterpoint Research report earlier this month said SK Hynix had captured 70% of the HBM market for income participation in the first quarter.

This HBM domain helped him overcome Samsung in the General DRAM market for the first time, with a 36% global market share compared to 34% of Samsung, the report added.

“The announcement that our company occupied the first place in the dram market in the first quarter of 2025 … reflects that our portfolio strategies that focused on the memory of highly profitable AI were well executed,” said a SK Hynix representative.

The company announced plans on Thursday to build a new manufacturing installation in Cheongju, South Korea, which will expand its next -generation dram production, including HBM.

The construction of the FAB is expected to begin at the end of April with the aim of completing for early mass production in November 2025. The company said that its total investment in the new production base would be more than 20 billion long -term profits.

Earlier this month, the South Korean government announced a supported support package of 33 billion billion for its chips industry. This was higher than the 26 billion he committed last year as the industry faces the uncertainty raised by Washington world commercial tariffs.

SK Hynix shares fell 0.9% in Asia.