SK Hynix Earnings Miss Expectations, U.S. Stocks Plunge 9% After Hours

Reported by Golden Finance, on July 29, SK Hynix (SKHY.O) released its earnings report on Wednesday. Driven by strong demand for advanced memory chips due to tech giants increasing investments in AI data centers, the company's second-quarter operating profit surged 557% to 60.5 trillion Korean won (approximately $41.62 billion), setting a new record, compared to 9.2 trillion Korean won in the same period last year. However, this figure fell short of market expectations of 64 trillion Korean won, primarily because its high-end memory chips (HBM) accounted for a higher proportion compared to competitors, which ironically prevented it from fully benefiting from the strong price surge in conventional memory chips during this cycle. This has heightened concerns that the AI boom driving the semiconductor industry may be slowing down. SK Hynix's revenue also missed expectations, with the earnings report showing second-quarter revenue of 79 trillion Korean won, while the market had anticipated 84 trillion Korean won. Affected by the earnings report, SK Hynix's U.S. stock fell 9% on Tuesday and dropped another 9% after hours. SanDisk (SNDK.O) and Micron Technology (MU.O) also fell by over 4%, erasing the boost brought by Seagate Technology's (STX.O) earnings report. (Jin10)