SK Hynix beats profit estimates as quarterly operating earnings jump 632.1%

SK Hynix earned 83.33 trillion won in third-quarter operating profit, clearing analyst forecasts by about 8.6%. Revenue also beat expectations. The results put the South Korean memory maker ahead of forecasts for both sales and operating earnings, with profit growing faster than revenue from a year earlier and from the previous quarter.

The company released its July–September earnings on October 28, according to CNBC. Revenue reached 104.62 trillion won, or $78.86 billion. That compares with an expected 98.34 trillion won, while operating profit exceeded the 76.72 trillion won forecast.

A larger surprise on profit than sales

The benchmark is LSEG SmartEstimates, which gives greater weight to forecasts from analysts with stronger accuracy records. Against that measure, SK Hynix delivered 6.28 trillion won more revenue and 6.61 trillion won more operating profit than expected. Those gaps measure the earnings surprise, rather than growth over an earlier period.

Growth extends beyond the annual comparison

Revenue rose 327.9% from the same quarter a year earlier, while operating profit increased 632.1%. These much larger percentages describe the change in the business over a year—not how far analysts missed the latest result. Operating profit grew substantially faster than sales on that annual comparison.

The nearer-term comparison also showed gains. Revenue increased 31.9% from the previous quarter, and operating profit climbed 37.6%. Both measures therefore advanced from the immediately preceding three months, as well as from the year-earlier period. Profit again rose faster than revenue, though the gap between their growth rates was narrower.

SK Hynix’s connection to the AI buildout runs through its role as a key supplier of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips to Nvidia. CNBC identifies the company as a major beneficiary of technology companies’ increased spending on data centers and advanced processors. That spending is benefiting a memory supplier alongside the companies selling the processors themselves.