[SK Hynix Plans $71 Billion Shareholder Return Program, Including $28.4 Billion Stock Buyback, Total Scale Surges Sevenfold Compared to Last Year] BlockBeats News, August 8: According to the Korea Economic Daily, SK Hynix is preparing a shareholder return program totaling approximately 100 trillion Korean won (about $71 billion), which includes stock buybacks and cash dividends. The stock buyback is expected to reach 40 trillion Korean won (about $28.4 billion), accounting for slightly more than 2% of the total issued shares, similar to the approximately 2.5% of new shares issued by the company for its U.S. ADR listing. This figure represents a significant sevenfold increase compared to last year's shareholder return scale of approximately 14.3 trillion Korean won, which included cash dividends (about 2.1 trillion Korean won) and stock cancellations (about 12.2 trillion Korean won). The fundamental support for SK Hynix's ability to propose such a large-scale return program lies in its dominant position in the HBM market, a core storage solution for AI infrastructure. SK Hynix is expected to achieve revenue of approximately 345.6 trillion Korean won and operating profit of about 266.4 trillion Korean won this year, representing year-on-year growth of approximately 256% and 464%, respectively. During its July earnings call, SK Hynix stated that HBM4 shipments would officially ramp up in the second half of the year, and shipments of advanced process general-purpose DRAM would also increase, with total shipments in the second half expected to exceed those in the first half. Previously, HSBC pointed out that SK Hynix's stock price implied a profit cycle that had sharply shortened from about six years to 2.7 years, with pricing being "overly pessimistic." The accelerated implementation of this shareholder return program may serve as a direct trigger for valuation recovery. [Original Link]