SK hynix publishes 4Q24 financials
Company to affirm the possibility of achieving sustainable profit through differentiation of AI product competitiveness and profitability-oriented operation.
SK hynix has 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.
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 world-leading HBM technology and profitability-oriented operation.
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-performance, 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 high performance computing, 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, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at SK hynix. “While maintaining the profitability-first commitment, the company will make flexible investment decisions in line with market situation.”
Recently, SK hynix also partnered with SK Telecom and Penguin Solutions.
SK hynix signed an agreement with SK Telecom and Penguin Solutions in Las Vegas on the 9th (local time) to promote joint R&D and business of AI data center solutions.
The signing ceremony was attended by key executives including SKT CEO Ryu Young-sang, Penguin Solutions CEO Mark Adams, and SK hynix AI Infrastructure President Justin Kim.
Penguin Solutions is a leading company specializing in AI data center solutions, which builds and manages customized data centers for companies that provide AI services.
Through this partnership, the three companies aim to pioneer new markets and take part in R&D and commercialization of solutions, to reach the goal of expansion in AI data centers. SK hynix also plans to work closely in the field of developing next-generation memory products for data centers to expand its HBM competitiveness.
Innovation of semiconductor memory technology is essential for the efficient operation of AI data centers, and improving power efficiency and heat dissipation performance is considered as a key challenge. Through collaboration with SK Telecom and Penguin Solutions, SK hynix plans to overcome the limitations of memory technology and lead the expansion of global AI ecosystem.
