SEOUL, July 29 (Reuters) – South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix reported a 557% increase in quarterly operating profit to a record high on Wednesday, driven by robust demand for advanced memory chips as big technology firms ramped up spending on AI data centres. The Nvidia supplier reported an operating profit of 60.5 trillion won ($41.62 […]
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SK Hynix Q2 profit jumps 557% on AI chip demand, misses forecasts
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SEOUL, July 29 (Reuters) – South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix reported a 557% increase in quarterly operating profit to a record high on Wednesday, driven by robust demand for advanced memory chips as big technology firms ramped up spending on AI data centres.
The Nvidia supplier reported an operating profit of 60.5 trillion won ($41.62 billion) for the April-June period, compared with 9.2 trillion won a year earlier.
That compared with a 64 trillion won forecast by LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted toward analysts who are more consistently accurate.
SK Hynix missed analysts’ forecasts because its higher exposure to high-end memory chips used in AI data centres than rivals meant it benefited less from a stronger price rally in conventional memory chips.
($1 = 1,453.7200 won)
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Joyce Lee; Editing by Jamie Freed)