[Edaily JAEMIN SONG Reporter Choi Oh-hyun] SK hynix posted an operating profit of over 60 trillion won in the second quarter of this year, setting a new record for its best-ever quarterly performance. The operating profit margin reached 76.3%, surpassing the 72% recorded in the first quarter and setting a new all-time high. Cumulative operating profit for the first half of the year also approached 100 trillion won.

SK hynix announced on the 29th that it recorded consolidated revenue of 79.3187 trillion won and operating profit of 60.5426 trillion won in the second quarter of this year. Compared to the same period last year, revenue increased by 256.8% and operating profit by 557.2%.

Compared to the previous record set in the first quarter of this year—52.5763 trillion won in revenue and 37.6103 trillion won in operating profit—these figures rose by 50.9% and 61.0%, respectively. This operating profit exceeds last year’s full-year total of 47.2063 trillion won by more than 13 trillion won in just one quarter.

The operating profit margin stood at 76.3%, up 4.8 percentage points (p) from the 71.5% recorded in the first quarter. This means that for every 10,000 won worth of products sold, the company generated 7,630 won in profit from its core business. In the manufacturing sector, which requires massive facilities and manpower, exceeding a 70% operating profit margin is extremely rare, leading it to be regarded as the so-called “dream operating profit margin.”

This figure is also high compared to major global technology companies. Based on a simple comparison of recently announced earnings, SK hynix’s operating profit margin ranks second only to Micron (81.2%). It outperformed not only NVIDIA (65.6%) and TSMC (60.3%), the world’s largest foundry, but also major Big Tech companies such as Microsoft, Alphabet, and Apple.

However, the results fell short of the market’s heightened expectations. According to financial information provider FnGuide Inc., the second-quarter consensus estimates were 83.9391 trillion won in revenue and 63.9868 trillion won in operating profit. Actual revenue and operating profit were each about 5% lower than market forecasts, resulting in an “earnings miss.”

The growth in earnings was driven by high-performance memory for AI servers and a steep rise in memory prices. As investment in AI infrastructure expanded, sales of high-value-added products—such as High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), DRAM for AI servers, and enterprise solid-state drives (eSSDs)—increased. Prices for DRAM and NAND flash also rose sharply, continuing the trend from the previous quarter.

SK hynix explained, “Both DRAM and NAND recorded significant price increases, continuing the trend from the previous quarter,” adding, “We achieved record profitability by increasing sales focused on high-value-added products such as HBM, DRAM for AI servers, and eSSDs.”

Requests for additional supply from major Big Tech companies are also continuing. SK hynix projected that the upward trend in memory demand will continue, as Big Tech’s investments in AI infrastructure are funded by revenues generated from AI services.

Based on this outlook, the company has finalized negotiations for long-term supply contracts with about 10 clients, including key customers, and is continuing further discussions with major industry clients. The company’s strategy is to secure medium- to long-term supply volumes through multi-year contracts and reduce volatility in memory prices and earnings.

The company is also expanding the supply of next-generation products. SK hynix began mass production shipments of HBM4 in the second quarter and plans to significantly ramp up production in the second half of the year. The company explained that HBM4 delivers the operating speeds demanded by customers, along with industry-leading power efficiency and cost competitiveness. Sample shipments of HBM4E to customers were completed in the first half of the year.

Sales of SOCAMM2 also increased significantly in the second quarter, and the company has begun full-scale supply of products manufactured using the 10-nanometer-class 6th-generation (1c) process. The 321-layer NAND products accounted for the largest share of total NAND production volume, and the company plans to expand their production to account for 50% of its domestic production capacity by the end of the year.

The company is also expanding production capacity to address supply shortages. It is accelerating the mass production schedule for the Cheongju M15X facility and investing to ensure rapid capacity expansion following the opening of the cleanroom at the first phase of the Yongin fab in early 2027. Projects such as the advanced packaging plant P&T7 and the NAND production base M17 will also be implemented in phases, taking into account customer demand and investment efficiency.

SK hynix stated, “We will strengthen both our production capacity and financial soundness by adhering to our capital expenditure principles while ensuring we are fully prepared for mid- to long-term growth opportunities.”