Takeaways from Kamala Harris’ CNN town hall
Platinum Equity's Ingram Micro to raise about $409 million in US IPO
Chinese self-driving startup WeRide files for $119 million U.S. IPO
Angelenos mourn Mexican-born pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who starred for the Dodgers in the 1980s
North Carolina government calculates Hurricane Helene damages, needs at least $53B
World Bank, IDB grant Argentina $8.8 billion in financing for economic development
Ron Ely, TV’s ‘Tarzan’ in the 1960s, dies at 86
Disney World hikes prices for its annual passes by up to $100
SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea's SK Hynix on Thursday posted a record quarterly profit as the Nvidia supplier saw strong sales of its advanced chips such as high bandwidth memory (HBM) ones used in generative AI chipsets.
The world's second-biggest memory chipmaker reported a 7 trillion won ($5.07 billion) operating profit for the July-September quarter versus a 1.8 trillion won loss a year earlier.
That compared with a 6.8 trillion won average forecast by LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted toward analysts who are more consistently accurate.
SK Hynix has outperformed rivals Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology in recent quarters, as it has benefited the most from AI-driven appetite for high-end memory chips following its early entry and large investments in HBM chip development.
"HBM sales showed excellent growth, up more than 70% from the previous quarter and more than 330% from the same period last year," SK Hynix said in a statement.
SK Hynix sees HBM sales making up 40% of its total DRAM revenue in the fourth quarter, up from 30% in the third quarter, and added it expects memory chip demand for AI servers to grow further next year as global tech companies continue developing generative AI.
Revenue for the quarter rose 94% year-on-year to 17.6 trillion won.
SK Hynix shares have jumped 38.5% so far this year, outperforming Samsung, whose stocks has slumped 24.7% over the same period.
Last month, SK Hynix, the main supplier of HBM chips to Nvidia, said it had started mass production of HBM3E 12-layer chips and plans to supply the latest products to unidentified customers by the end of this year.
Its bigger rival Samsung earlier this month warned its third-quarter profit would come in below market expectations and apologised for the disappointing performance, acknowledging its struggle to make headway in supplying high-end chips.
($1 = 1,379.9600 won)
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Joyce Lee; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Sonali Paul)
