[Edaily Reporter Choi Oh-hyun ] SK hynix is set to announce its second-quarter earnings on the 29th. Amid the ongoing boom in the artificial intelligence (AI) memory market, the company is expected to once again set a new record for quarterly earnings, led by high-bandwidth memory (HBM).

However, amid concerns that the semiconductor market may have peaked—which caused the stock price to plunge 14.65% from the previous trading day—attention is likely to focus more on the outlook for the second half of the year and future plans to expand HBM supply rather than the quarterly earnings themselves.

According to industry sources on the 29th, SK hynix will announce its second-quarter earnings this morning and then explain its business status and outlook for the second half of the year during a conference call.

According to the average of securities firm forecasts compiled by financial information provider FnGuide Inc., SK hynix’s second-quarter results are expected to show consolidated revenue of 83.9391 trillion won and operating profit of 63.9868 trillion won. The operating profit margin is projected to be approximately 76.2%, an improvement of about 4.7 percentage points from the first quarter (71.5%).

If market expectations are met, SK hynix will surpass the revenue of 52.5763 trillion won and operating profit of 37.6103 trillion won recorded in the first quarter, setting a new record for quarterly earnings. This means that operating profit for the first half of the year alone will exceed 100 trillion won, reaffirming the company’s status as the biggest beneficiary of the AI memory supercycle. SK hynix’s annual operating profit last year was 47.2 trillion won, a figure that first-quarter operating profit has already surpassed.

The expansion of AI infrastructure investment is cited as the driving force behind these strong results. The securities industry analyzes that sales of HBM and server DRAM have increased significantly due to expanded investments in AI data centers by global Big Tech companies, including NVIDIA, and that the profitability of the NAND business has also improved due to rising prices for enterprise solid-state drives (SSDs).

However, the market is paying closer attention to the outlook for the second half of the year than to these latest results.

As concerns about the sustainability of AI investments have recently emerged in global stock markets, factors such as whether major clients’ investment trends will shift, plans to expand HBM supply, and the mass production schedule for new products are seen as key variables that will determine future earnings and stock prices.

In particular, the transition to HBM4 (6th-generation HBM) is the biggest variable affecting second-half performance. There is significant interest in whether the company will provide specific details during the conference call regarding the timing of the transition to large-scale HBM4 mass production and its plans for expanding production volumes.