SK hynix Q3 Revenue at 104.6 Trillion Won, Demand Expected to Outpace Supply Through 2030
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SK hynix announced on October 28 its Q3 revenue of 104.6155 trillion won and operating profit of 83.3338 trillion won. It expects demand to keep exceeding supply through 2030, and more than half of its production capacity for 2027 and 2028 is already under long-term contracts.
What happened
Based on SK hynix's Q3 2026 earnings (K-IFRS consolidated, October 28) posted on its newsroom.
- Revenue: 104.6155 trillion won. It topped 100 trillion won in a quarter for the first time and rose 32% from Q2 (79.3187 trillion won). (Official)
- Operating profit: 83.3338 trillion won, up 38% from Q2 (60.5426 trillion won). Operating margin of 80%. (Official)
- Net income: 39.7756 trillion won, net margin of 38%. Down 58% from Q2, which had a large one-time gain. (Official)
- Demand and supply outlook: AI memory demand keeps growing and supply cannot keep up, so the company expects demand to exceed supply through 2030. It cited the difficulty of leading-edge processes and the long time needed to build new fabs. (Official)
- Long-term contracts: Signed with 14 major customers, including global cloud providers, covering more than 50% of total production capacity in 2027 and 2028. Contracts typically run five years, and prices adjust with market conditions within agreed ranges. (Official)
- HBM4: Full-scale shipments began this quarter, and the company expects HBM4 to surpass HBM3E in both shipment volume and revenue in Q4. (Official)
- NAND: Sales of the 321-layer TLC eSSD increased, and in Q4 the company plans to move more than half of its domestic NAND production capacity to 321-layer. (Official)
Not in the announcement: D-RAM and NAND price increase rates, and any mention of consumer or PC memory.
Our take
This reads as evidence that supply is being allocated to long-term server and AI contracts first. It is a signal that prices for consumer RAM and SSDs will be hard to lower, but the announcement says nothing about consumer products, so this document alone cannot tell us when or how much prices will move. That is why it makes sense to calculate memory costs separately when choosing local AI hardware.
Sources and related posts
- SK하이닉스 뉴스룸: 2026년 3분기 경영실적 Primary source