SK Hynix Inc.
Semiconductors / Memory and Storage Solutions (DRAMFounded 1983- Updated July 2025
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: July 2025
CorpDigest
SK Hynix Inc.
Financial Performance
Last reviewed: July 2025 · By Swet Parvadiya
Revenue
$48.9B
Market Cap
$81.5B
Net Income
$4.7B
Employees
34,000
Revenue of $48.91 billion in FY2024 compared to $15.09 billion in FY2023 — a 224% increase in a single year — is the most dramatic illustration available of how violently memory semiconductor financials can move when the product cycle and the demand cycle align. The $36.63 billion revenue figure in FY2022, the collapse to $15.09 billion in FY2023, and the recovery to $48.91 billion in FY2024 represent three consecutive years of extraordinary volatility in both directions. The driver of the FY2024 recovery was unambiguous: High Bandwidth Memory pricing and volume, fueled by hyperscaler capital expenditure on AI infrastructure. HBM3E commands prices an order of magnitude above commodity DRAM on a per-bit basis because the packaging complexity — stacking multiple DRAM dies and connecting them with thousands of through-silicon vias — limits production yield in ways that standard DRAM fabrication does not. SK Hynix's proprietary MR-MUF packaging process achieved better thermal performance and yield than competing approaches, securing the primary allocation in Nvidia's most advanced accelerator designs. Net income of $4.66 billion in FY2024 compared to a $3.5 billion net loss in FY2023 produced the $8.16 billion swing that made SK Hynix's annual results one of the most widely discussed financial turnarounds in global semiconductors. Market capitalization stood at approximately $81.5 billion — reflecting both the FY2024 results and the market's assessment of how long the HBM premium pricing cycle will last before Samsung and Micron close the technical gap. The 2021 acquisition of Intel's NAND business for $9 billion represents the largest acquisition in SK Hynix's history and created a revenue stream that, while lower-margin than advanced DRAM, provides some counter-cyclicality to the DRAM-heavy core business. The FY2021 revenue of $36.6 billion and FY2022 revenue of $36.63 billion represented a stable period that the DRAM downcycle then destroyed in FY2023 — a reminder that the path from the current position back to the trough, if the AI buildout slows, is steep.
Revenue Trend Analysis
YoY Change
+224.1%
5-Year CAGR
+12.6%
Peak Year
2024
Trend
Consistent Growth
SK Hynix Inc. has reported revenue across 6 fiscal years, compounding at +12.6% annually over 5 years. The most recent year saw a 224.1% increase versus the prior year. Revenue peaked in 2024 at $48.9B. Out of 5 reported periods, 4 showed growth and 1 showed a decline.
| Fiscal Year | Revenue | Net Income | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2024 | $48.9B | $4.7B | +224.1% |
| FY2023 | $15.1B | — | -58.8% |
| FY2022 | $36.6B | — | +0.1% |
| FY2021 | $36.6B | — | +22.0% |
| FY2020 | $30.0B | — | +11.2% |
| FY2019 | $27.0B | — | — |
Source: SEC EDGAR filings, annual earnings releases, and verified financial disclosures.
Click any row to see year details.
SK Hynix reported full year 2024 revenue of 66.19 trillion won, roughly 48.9 billion dollars at average exchange rates, more than double the 32.77 trillion won in 2023. Operating profit swung to a record 23.47 trillion won from a 7.73 trillion won operating loss in 2023, the worst result in the company's history. Net profit reached 19.8 trillion won versus a 9.14 trillion won net loss in 2023. The dramatic turnaround was driven by HBM3 and HBM3E shipments to Nvidia and other AI customers, a recovery in conventional DRAM pricing of more than 50 percent year over year, and improving NAND ASPs. Fourth quarter 2024 alone generated 19.77 trillion won of revenue and 8.08 trillion won of operating profit. Gross margin expanded to roughly 50 percent in late 2024 from negative territory in early 2023. The company ended 2024 with net debt of about 12 trillion won, sharply lower than the 23 trillion won peak in 2023, and announced its first regular quarterly dividend program along with a planned share buyback of up to 5 trillion won over the medium term.
SK Hynix's earnings illustrate the extreme cyclicality of memory. The company earned record operating profit of 20.84 trillion won in 2018 on revenue of 40.45 trillion won, with operating margin above 50 percent during the data center DRAM boom. Profits collapsed to 2.71 trillion won in 2019 as DRAM prices fell, recovered to 12.41 trillion won in 2021 during the pandemic computing surge, then crashed to a 7.73 trillion won operating loss in 2023, the deepest annual loss in company history. The 2023 loss was driven by inventory write downs of more than 2 trillion won, NAND ASP declines exceeding 40 percent year over year, and underutilization charges as the company idled capacity. 2024 then delivered a record 23.47 trillion won operating profit, eclipsing the 2018 peak. Across the 2015 to 2024 decade SK Hynix has averaged roughly 9 to 10 trillion won of operating profit per year, but with a standard deviation nearly as large as the mean. The HBM business is gradually smoothing this volatility because long term contracts and capacity scarcity reduce exposure to DRAM spot prices.
Entering the 2023 downturn SK Hynix carried roughly 12 to 13 trillion won of net debt, which ballooned to about 23 trillion won at the end of 2023 as the company drew on credit lines, issued bonds and a 1.7 billion dollar exchangeable bond convertible into Kioxia shares to fund capex through the cycle. SK Group also subscribed to a 9.4 trillion won perpetual hybrid security in 2023 to bolster the balance sheet. Through 2024 the AI driven cash flow recovery rapidly deleveraged the balance sheet, with operating cash flow of roughly 30 trillion won and free cash flow above 10 trillion won. Net debt fell to about 12 trillion won by year end 2024 and the company guided to net cash position by 2025 if HBM demand holds. Credit rating agencies responded by upgrading SK Hynix to A3 at Moody's in 2024. Capital expenditure for 2025 is expected to exceed 20 trillion won, focused on HBM, the M15X expansion in Cheongju, and initial spending on the Yongin mega cluster, alongside the 3.87 billion dollar Indiana advanced packaging plant.
DRAM contributes the dominant share of SK Hynix revenue and almost all profit. In 2024 DRAM was roughly 67 to 70 percent of revenue and NAND including Solidigm contributed 30 to 33 percent, with HBM rising to more than 30 percent of DRAM revenue by the fourth quarter. Within DRAM, server DRAM and HBM became the largest single segment, surpassing mobile DRAM for the first time during 2024 as data center demand outpaced smartphones. NAND remains weighted toward client SSDs, mobile UFS and enterprise SSDs via Solidigm. Geographically SK Hynix sells about 35 to 45 percent of output into China, including Wuxi internal transfers and customers like Lenovo and Xiaomi, 25 to 30 percent in the Americas dominated by Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta, 15 to 20 percent in Korea reflecting Samsung Mobile and LG, and the balance in Taiwan, Japan and Europe. The Nvidia exposure in particular has surged with HBM, and US export controls on advanced AI chips to China create both risk and incremental allocation opportunity for SK Hynix's HBM destined for US customers.
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CorpDigest. "SK Hynix Inc. Revenue & Financials." CorpDigest, https://corpdigest.com/company/sk-hynix/financials.<div style="font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:1.5;border:1px solid #e2e8f0;border-radius:8px;padding:12px 16px;max-width:520px"><strong>SK Hynix Inc. reported $49B in revenue (FY2024).</strong><br>Source: <a href="https://corpdigest.com/company/sk-hynix/financials" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CorpDigest — SK Hynix Inc. financials</a></div>