Record profits expected for SK hynix in Q1 as market weighs chip momentum

SK hynix will announce its first-quarter earnings for the year on April 23, with analysts expecting the memory chip giant to post record-breaking profits. The market is now debating whether the company can sustain its current level of profitability or if the global memory chip upcycle is nearing its peak. As of Thursday, brokerages expect SK hynix to post 47.66 trillion won ($32.2 billion) in sales and 32.69 trillion won in operating profit for the first quarter, representing year-on-year growth of 170 percent and 339 percent, respectively. The operating margin is projected to reach 68.6 percent. SK hynix is highly likely to smash its previous performance record — 32.83 trillion won in sales and 19.17 trillion won in operating profit — from the fourth quarter of last year. The surge was driven by robust demand tied to the artificial intelligence boom, with expanded sales of high-value memory products centered on high-bandwidth memory (HBM), while the average selling price of memory products rose across all segments, including conventional dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and NAND