SEOUL, July 29 (Reuters) – South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix reported a more than sixfold increase in quarterly operating profit to a record high on Wednesday, driven by robust demand for advanced memory chips as big technology firms ramped up spending on AI data centres.
The Nvidia supplier reported an operating profit of 60.5 trillion won ($41.62 billion) for the April-June period, compared with 9.2 trillion won a year earlier. But it missed a 64 trillion won forecast by LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted toward analysts who are more consistently accurate.
“Driven by sustained demand growth from expanding AI infrastructure investments, high-performance products for AI servers led price increases, enabling the company to surpass its previous record set in the prior quarter,” SK Hynix said in a statement.
SK Hynix missed analysts’ forecasts because its higher exposure to high-end memory chips used in AI data centres than rivals meant it benefited less from a stronger price rally in conventional memory chips.
Contract prices for certain dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips jumped about 52% in the second quarter from the previous quarter, while prices for some NAND products doubled, according to data from market tracker TrendForce.
Concerns about the ability of “hyperscalers” like Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Oracle to fund hundreds of billions of dollars of planned investment in AI infrastructure have weighed on chip shares globally in recent weeks.
SK Hynix’s net profit rose more than 13-fold, driven in part by non-operating gains. It reported net non-operating profit of 60.9 trillion won, including gains related to investment assets, without providing further details.
Kim Sunwoo, a senior analyst at Meritz Securities, estimated that the company recognized cumulative investment gains following the completion last month of the sale of its stake in Japanese NAND flash memory maker Kioxia.
SK Hynix invested about 4 trillion won in Kioxia in 2018 through a Bain Capital-led consortium of U.S., Japanese and South Korean investors, participating via two special purpose vehicles (SPCs).
The company said its quarterly revenue rose 257% to 79.3 trillion won.
($1 = 1,453.7200 won)
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Joyce Lee; Editing by Jamie Freed and Sonali Paul)
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