A person walks previous a emblem of SK Hynix on the foyer of the corporate’s Bundang workplace in Seongnam on January 29, 2021.
Jung Yeon-Je | AFP | Getty Pictures
South Korea’s SK Hynix, one of many world’s largest reminiscence chipmakers, on Wednesday posted report quarterly income and revenue, boosted by a powerful demand for its excessive bandwidth reminiscence utilized in generative AI chipsets.
Listed here are SK Hynix’s third-quarter outcomes versus LSEG SmartEstimates, that are weighted towards forecasts from analysts who’re extra constantly correct:
- Income: 24.45 trillion gained ($17.13 billion) vs. 24.73 trillion gained
- Working revenue: 11.38 trillion gained vs. 11.39 trillion gained
Income rose about 39% within the September quarter in contrast with the identical interval a yr earlier, whereas working revenue surged 62%, yr on yr.
On a quarter-on-quarter foundation, income was up 10%, whereas working revenue grew 24%.
SK Hynix makes reminiscence chips which might be used to retailer information and may be present in every thing from servers to client units reminiscent of smartphones and laptops.
The corporate has benefited from a increase in synthetic intelligence as a key provider of high-bandwidth reminiscence or HBM chips used to energy AI information middle servers.
“As demand throughout the reminiscence section has soared attributable to clients’ increasing investments in AI infrastructure, SK Hynix as soon as once more surpassed the record-high efficiency of the earlier quarter attributable to elevated gross sales of excessive value-added merchandise,” SK Hynix mentioned in its earnings launch.
HBM falls into the broader class of dynamic random entry reminiscence, or DRAM — a kind of semiconductor reminiscence used to retailer information and program code that may be present in PCs, workstations and servers.
SK Hynix has set itself aside within the DRAM market by getting an early lead in HBM and establishing itself as the primary provider to the world’s main AI chip designer, Nvidia.
Nonetheless, its principal rivals, U.S.-based Micron and South Korean-based tech big Samsung, have been working to catch up within the area.
“With the innovation of AI expertise, the reminiscence market has shifted to a brand new paradigm and demand has begun to unfold to all product areas,” SK Hynix Chief Monetary Officer Kim Woohyun mentioned within the earnings launch.
“We’ll proceed to strengthen our AI reminiscence management by responding to buyer demand via market-leading merchandise and differentiated technological capabilities,” he added.
The HBM market is predicted to proceed to increase over the following few years to round $43 billion by 2027, giving robust earnings leverage to reminiscence producers reminiscent of SK Hynix, MS Hwang, analysis director at Counterpoint Analysis, instructed CNBC.
“[F]or SK Hynix to proceed producing income, it’s going to be necessary for the corporate to take care of and improve its aggressive edge,” he added.
