Assets
SK Hynix is a South Korean company specializing in the development and production of memory chips. SK Hynix products are widely used in equipment sold on the Russian market. As Bloomberg reported at the end of January 2018, SK Hynix and Samsung jointly control more than two-thirds of the global RAM market.
Performance indicators
2022: Losses of 1.7 trillion won due to collapse in demand for memory chips
In the fourth quarter of 2022, SK Hynix received record operating losses of 1.7 trillion won (about $1.38 billion at the exchange rate as of February 3, 2023). Such data are provided in the financial report released on January 31, 2023.
The negative results, including the first losses in 10 years, are explained by a sharp drop in prices for memory microchips.
In such a situation, SK Hynix is forced to reduce production, investment and costs. Experts say that IT market participants are reducing production volumes amid global macroeconomic difficulties, and therefore storage stocks of memory chips will peak in the first half of 2023. The recovery of the industry can begin only in the second half of 2023.
At the end of 2022, in general, SK Hynix received revenue of 44.65 trillion won (approximately $36.28 billion), which is 4% more than in 2021, when sales were 43 trillion won. Net profit amounted to 2.44 trillion won (about $1.98 billion) against 9.62 trillion won in 2021: according to this indicator, a drop of 75% was recorded.
In 2022, SK Hynix increased supplies of DRAM large capacities for servers and personal computers, as well as increased sales of DDR5 and HBM products for artificial intelligence platforms big data , and. cloud computing In particular, data center SSD revenues have more than quadrupled from 2021. But in this situation, the company is forced to save money.
 | As uncertainty still persists, we will continue to reduce investment and spending, trying to minimize the impact of the economic downturn and prioritizing markets with high growth potential, SK Hynix said in a statement.[1] |  |
2020: CMOS Image Sensor Market Share - 4%
SK Hynix's market share of CMOS image sensors was 4% (Omdia data). Read more here.
2019
Among the largest companies in the semiconductor industry by revenue
33% drop in revenue to 26.99 trillion won; profit - 2.02 billion won
In 2019, SK Hynix raised 26.99 billion won ($21.96 billion at the exchange rate as of April 15, 2020), which is 33% less than a year earlier. The net profit of the South Korean memory chip manufacturer decreased even more - by 87% to 2.02 billion won ($1.63 billion).
| | In the face of growing global economic uncertainty, growing stocks of memory chips and conservative procurement policies from customers have led to slower demand as well as falling prices, explained SK Hynix, talking about the reasons for the fall in company revenues. | |
SK Hynix is increasing investment in non-memory products in an attempt to stabilize sales and reduce reliance on the volatile DRAM and NAND flash chip market. The company's efforts can be seen in the financial statements.
In 2019, the non-memory category brought SK Hynix 1.6 trillion won of revenue, which is 139% more than the result in 2018. At the same time, the implementation of DRAM chips decreased by 37%, to 20.3 trillion won, and sales of flash memory fell by 31%, to 5.1 trillion won.
In terms of the total capacity of the released memory chips, their shipments from SK Hynix increased by 8% in the DRAM segment and by 10% in the NAND flash segment.
Although memory remains the main product of SK Hynix, the company noted that its share in 2019 accounted for 75% of all revenue, and not 80%, as in 2018. The contribution of the non-memory category in the same period, by contrast, increased from 2% to 6%.
In 2019, SK Hynix earned 12.57 trillion won in the Chinese market, which is 25% less than in 2018. Despite the decline, the contribution of the PRC to the total revenue of the company increased by 7.6% and amounted to 46.4% against 38.8% a year earlier. For comparison, in 2017, the Middle Kingdom accounted for only about a third of the total turnover of SK Hynix.[2]
History
2025: China Chip Licenses Revoked
The US Department of Commerce has revoked licenses from Samsung Electronics to use US-made equipment to make chips in China. The decision will affect SK Hynix, as well as Intel, which previously had the right to work in China under special permits. The new rules oblige companies to obtain separate licenses for each purchase. This was reported by Bloomberg at the end of August 2025. Read more here
2024: Participation in the creation of a semiconductor cluster in South Korea for $471 billion
South Korean companies with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are investing 622 trillion won (about $471 billion at the exchange rate at the time of the article's release - January 16, 2024) in the production of chips. South Korean President Yoon Seok-yol spoke about the plans of local producers, speaking at an event at Songyungwan University. Read more here.
2022: SK Hynix acquires Yes Power Technix for $95m
In late April 2022, it became known about the sale of South Korean electric car chip maker Yes Power Technix to SK Hynix, which is the world's second largest memory chip developer. The transaction cost amounted to 120 billion won ($95 million). Read more here.
2020: Buying NAND flash memory business from Intel
On October 19, 2020, Intel announced the sale of its NAND flash memory business to South Korean company SK Hynix for $9 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, the buyer will pay $7 billion by the end of the year, and the remaining amount will be transferred to the American technology giant by March 2025. Read more here.
2019: Investing $107 billion in the world's largest semiconductor cluster
On February 21, 2019, SK Hynix announced an investment of 120 trillion won (about $107 billion at the exchange rate per day of application) in the construction of four factories to maintain its competitiveness in the fight against Chinese chip makers.
According to Reuters, citing a statement from SK Hynix, the new enterprises will be erected on a 4.5 million square meter plot of land south of Seoul. The start of construction is scheduled for 2022, after which it will take about 10 years to implement the project. However, the timing is inconclusive and may change depending on the market situation, the company warned.
Yonhap clarifies that SK Hynix has conceived the creation of the world's largest semiconductor cluster. It will be located in Yongying City (Gyeonggi-do Province, located about 50 km from Seoul).
The special project company sent a letter of intent to the city administration regarding the long-term investments of more than 50 South Korean and foreign companies in the industry, which are going to place their production in the new complex in Yongin.
SK Hynix chose Yongying as a place to create new large production facilities not by chance: the city is located near Icheon (also in Gyeonggi-do province), where the company's headquarters is located.
These are not SK Hynix's first facilities in South Korea. The company also has M16 factories in Icheon and M15 in Cheongju, in which a total of 55 trillion yen ($49 billion) is planned to be invested until 2029.
SK Hynix is expanding its memory chip production in preparation for a surge in demand as new technologies such as 5G networks and artificial intelligence evolve. In addition, the project will be part of a production race in which South Korea and China participate. The latter is the largest consumer of chips, importing them in the amount of $270 billion in 2017. This is more than the volume of oil imports.[3]
2018: Record revenue - 40.4 trillion won; record profit - 15.54 trillion won
In 2018, SK Hynix received the largest revenue in its history - 40.4 trillion won (about $35.8 billion). A year earlier, sales were measured at 20.8 trillion won.
Thus, revenue rose by a third, which the company associated with high demand for chips for smartphones and data center equipment. The South Korean producer's revenues are increasing despite the trend of falling memory prices.
Net profit of SK Hynix in 2018 amounted to 15.54 trillion won ($13.7 billion), which is 46% higher than a year ago. Profits also proved to be a record for the company.
| | Last year, favorable conditions remained in the memory market, which was facilitated by the demand for components from data centers and high-performance mobile devices. However, in the second half of the year, the situation changed rapidly - demand slowed down, and the shortage of supplied products passed, "SK Hynix said in a statement. | |
Among the factors that negatively affect the income of SK Hynix, the company attributes the fall in memory prices. According to DRAMeXchange analysts, in the fourth quarter of 2018 alone, the average sales value of DRAM chips dropped by 10%. Moreover, this trend is likely to continue in 2019: during this 12-month period, RAM may fall in price by 20%, and in the server segment, the drop may reach 50% at all, the researchers predict.
SK Hynix reported that the company's DRAM memory shipments in 2018 decreased by 2%, and the average sales value of such products decreased by 11%. In the segment of flash memory, used mainly in mobile devices, shipments rose by 10%, and the average price dropped by 21%.[4]
2017: Record earnings
In 2017, SK Hynix's revenue reached 30.1 trillion won ($28.3 billion at the exchange rate as of January 25, 2018), an increase of 75% compared to 2016. Net profit jumped 260%, amounting to 10.6 trillion won (almost $10 billion).
Both the profit and sales of SK Hynix at the end of 2017 were record. The company's significant rise is due to rising memory prices. Thus, the average cost of RAM chips (DRAM), which were implemented by SK Hynix, increased by an average of 9%, and in the case of NAND flash chips, growth was measured at 4%. These products bring the South Korean company about 22% and 77% of revenue, respectively.
| | Favorable conditions in the market remained due to strong demand for server products and rising prices for mobile solutions, SK Hynix said in a report. | |
According to Eugene Investment & Securities analyst Lee Seung-woo, revenues at SK Hynix increased despite the possible impact on the company's business of factors such as Intel vulnerabilities found in processors and weakening demand for, smartphones Apple which bring SK Hynix about 12% of revenue.
SK Hynix reported that defects in Intel chips could even spur demand for servers and memory, as updates that fix vulnerabilities reduce system performance and customers could purchase more hardware to compensate for this slowdown.
The decline in sales growth of some models weakly smartphones affected demand in the DRAM memory segment, since chips can find application in other phones and computers that sell better, added SK Hynix.[5]
Notes
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