SK Hynix Shares Slide Despite Record Profit as AI Chip Demand Fails to Meet Sky-High Expectations

SK Hynix, the world's second-largest memory chipmaker, reported a record operating profit for the second quarter, yet its shares tumbled as investors weighed the results against increasingly ambitious expectations for the artificial intelligence boom.

The company posted operating profit of 60.5 trillion won ($41.6 billion) for the quarter, more than five times higher than a year earlier and the strongest quarterly performance in its history. Revenue climbed to 79.32 trillion won, propelled by surging orders for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips and server DRAM used to power AI data centers.

Despite the blockbuster figures, both profit and revenue landed roughly 5 to 6 percent below what analysts had been projecting. That shortfall was enough to trigger a sell-off in SK Hynix stock, underscoring how far market expectations have run ahead of even historically strong results as the AI infrastructure buildout accelerates.

SK Hynix has emerged as one of the chief beneficiaries of the AI boom, supplying HBM chips that are critical components in the advanced processors used to train and run large AI models. Demand from major AI chipmakers and cloud providers has pushed the company's memory business to unprecedented heights over the past two years.

The muted market reaction highlights a broader dynamic across the semiconductor sector, where companies tied to AI infrastructure are increasingly judged not just on whether they grow, but on whether they grow fast enough to justify soaring valuations. Even a fivefold jump in profit was not enough to reassure investors betting on an even steeper trajectory.

The results carry significance for South Korea's broader economy, given the memory chip sector's outsized role in national exports and industrial output. SK Hynix's performance is closely watched as a bellwether for the health of the country's tech-driven growth engine and for global AI hardware demand more broadly.