SK hynix: 4Q24 Financial Results

Summary:

• Revenues for 2024 at 66.1930 trillion won, operating profit at 23.4673 trillion won, net profit at 19.7969 trillion won
• Revenues for Q4 at 19.7670 trillion won, operating profit at 8.0828 trillion won, net profit at 8.0065 trillion won
• Achieving best-ever quarterly and yearly performance with increased sales of AI memory products including HBM and eSSD
• Company to affirm the possibility of achieving sustainable profit through differentiation of AI product competitiveness and profitability-oriented operation

SK hynix Inc. announced that it recorded best-ever yearly performance with 66.1930 trillion won in revenues, 23.4673 trillion won in operating profit (with an operating margin of 35%), and 19.7969 trillion won in net profit (with a net margin of 30%).

Yearly revenues marked all-time high, exceeding the previous record in 2022 by over 21 trillion won and operating profit exceeded the record in 2018 during the semiconductor super boom. FY2022 Yearly Revenues: 44.6216 trillion won / FY2018 Yearly Operating Profit: 20.8437 trillion won

In particular, fourth quarter revenues went up by 12% to 19.7670 trillion won, operating profit up 15% to 8.0828 trillion won (with an operating margin of 41%) from the previous quarter and net profit recorded 8.0065 trillion won (with a net margin of 41%).

SK hynix emphasized that with prolonged strong demand for AI memory, the company achieved all-time high result through HBM technology and profitability-oriented operation.

High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) continued its high growth in fourth quarter marking over 40% of total DRAM revenue and eSSD also showed constant increase in sales. With remarkable product competitiveness based profitability-oriented operation, the company established a stable financial condition which led to improved outcome.

Annual result of 2024 demonstrated memory company’s possibility of stable profit gain by supplying product in right time to meet customers’ needs. Especially, in which the memory sector is being transformed into a high-quality market with growth of AI memory demand.

Based on the financial result, at the end of 2024, cash equivalent increased by 5.2 trillion won to 14.2 trillion won and debt decreased by 6.8 trillion won to 22.7 trillion won compared to the end of 2023, leading the significant improvement in the debt ratio and net debt ratio to 31% and 12% respectively.

SK hynix forecasts that the demand of HBM and high density server DRAM, which is essential in HPC, will continue to increase as the global big tech companies’ investment in AI servers grow and AI inference technology gains importance. In the consumer market, which inventory adjustment is expected, sales of PC and smartphones equipped with AI will expand and the market situation will pick up in the second half of the year.

Therefore, the company plans to expand HBM3E supply and develop HBM4 in right time to meet customers’ needs. With stable demand, the company aims to push for the transition to advanced process, necessary for the production of competitive DDR5 and LPDDR5. For NAND, as last year, the company plans to meet the market with profitability-oriented operation and flexible sales strategies.

SK hynix raised the annual fixed dividend by 25% to 1,500 won a share from 1,200 won and hiked total amount of the cash dividend to 1 trillion won annually. Along with the raise, the company decided to put aside 5% of the free cash flow, which was formerly included in the dividend policy, for enhancement of the financial structure.

“With significantly increased portion of high value-added products, SK hynix has built fundamental to achieve sustainable revenues and profits even in times of market correction.” said Kim Woohyun, VP and CFO, SK hynix. “While maintaining the profitability-first commitment, the company will make flexible investment decisions in line with market situation.“

FY2024 Financial Results (K-IFRS)

 4Q24 Financial Results (K-IFRS)