SK Hynix Announces KRW 100 Trillion Shareholder Return Plan; Memory Chip Shortage to Last Until 2030

According to TechFlow, on October 28, SK Hynix (SKHY.O) reported quarterly profit up more than sevenfold year over year and announced an additional shareholder return plan worth KRW 100 trillion (approximately USD 75 billion) in 2026. The company reported that operating profit for the quarter ended September reached KRW 83.3 trillion (expected KRW 76.7 trillion) and revenue rose to KRW 104.6 trillion (expected KRW 98.3 trillion), with both metrics setting record highs for a single quarter.

Driven by tight supply, the company's operating margin remains at a historically high level. The company said on Wednesday that it expects the memory chip supply shortage to persist until 2030. On the other hand, the company's analysis holds that the technical difficulty of advanced process nodes continues to rise, while building new semiconductor fabs takes a considerable amount of time, limiting supply expansion. The company expects that in the short term, enterprise and consumer adoption of artificial intelligence will drive memory demand, while in the medium and long term, physical AI applications such as autonomous driving and robotics will become drivers of demand growth. (Jin10)

Source: TechFlow