Nvidia supplier SK Hynix posts highest quarterly profit in 6 years on AI chip leadership

SK Hynix, one of the world's largest memory chipmakers, on Thursday said second-quarter profit hit its highest level in 6 years as it maintains its leadership in advanced memory chips critical for artificial intelligence computing.

Here are SK Hynix's second-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:

Operating profit in the June quarter hit its highest level since the second quarter of 2018, rebounding from a loss of 2.88 trillion won in the same period a year ago.

Revenue from April to June increased 124.7% from 7.3 trillion won logged a year ago. This was the highest quarterly revenue ever in the firm's history, according to LSEG data available since 2009.

SK Hynix on Thursday said that a continuous rise in overall prices of its memory products — thanks to strong demand for AI memory including high-bandwidth memory — led to a 32% increase in revenue compared with the previous quarter.

The South Korean giant supplies high-bandwidth memory chips catering to AI chipsets for companies like Nvidia.

Shares of SK Hynix fell as much as 7.81% Thursday morning.

The declines came as the South Korea's Kospi index lost as much as 1.91% after U.S. tech stocks sold off overnight, following disappointing Alphabet and Tesla earnings. Those reports mark investors' first look at how megacap companies fared during the second quarter.

"In the second half of this year, strong demand from AI servers are expected to continue as well as gradual recovery in conventional markets with the launch of AI-enabled PC and mobile devices," the firm said in its earnings call on Thursday.

Capitalizing on the strong AI demand, SK Hynix plans to "continue its leadership in