SK Hynix profit jumps to 83.33 trillion won as Kospi tops 6000

South Korea’s SK Hynix, the world’s second-largest memory-chip maker, said on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026 it posted a record operating profit of 83.33 trillion won in the third quarter, up 632 percent year-on-year, while quarterly revenue exceeded 100 trillion won for the first time in its history, reaching 104.62 trillion won, driven by rising demand for memory chips used in AI servers.

The results were well above analysts’ expectations, which had forecast operating profit of about 77 trillion won. The operating margin reached a record 80 percent, and net profit was 39.78 trillion won, up 216 percent from the same period a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, revenue rose about 32 percent and operating profit 38 percent compared with the second quarter.

Plan to return about 100 trillion won to shareholders

The company unveiled a program to return roughly 100 trillion won to shareholders during 2026, including cash dividends of at least 30 trillion won and share buybacks and cancellations of at least 60 trillion won, including a 40 trillion-won program completed last week. The board approved Q3 dividends of 14 trillion won, equivalent to 20,000 won per share, half of which are special distributions from gains on the company’s investment in Japan’s Kioxia, alongside a new 20 trillion-won buyback.

AI demand is exhausting production capacity

The company said most of its production capacity for DRAM and high-bandwidth memory is already sold out through 2029, and that it has signed long-term agreements covering more than half its output in 2027 and 2028. It expects supply tightness for memory chips to continue through 2030 as investments in AI infrastructure expand. It added that its sixth-generation high-bandwidth chips, known as HBM4, will become its main product from the fourth quarter.

Seoul market jumps above 6000 points

The results were reflected in markets: SK Hynix shares closed up about 10.9 percent, and Seoul’s main Kospi index rose 6.6 percent to 6,012.4 points, surpassing the 6,000 mark. Samsung Electronics shares gained 9 percent ahead of its full quarterly results, and the rally spread to Tokyo, where the Nikkei 225 rose more than 1 percent.

These figures come a day after the announcement " that South Korea’s economy grew 1 percent in the third quarter, driven by chip exports, and helped ease some of the concerns that had triggered sharp declines in technology stocks recently, including " Wall Street’s sell-off amid worries about the cost of AI, about semiconductor demand having peaked.