SK Hynix record $33B profit driven by Nvidia AI demand

SK Hynix posted $65 billion in FY2025 revenue and a record $33 billion operating profit, driven primarily by a more-than-doubling of high-bandwidth memory sales. The financial performance underscores how demand for AI infrastructure has reshaped the memory chip market.

The South Korean chipmaker now controls 58% of the global HBM market by revenue, according to Counterpoint Research data for the first quarter of 2026. This dominance leaves rivals Samsung and Micron to split the remainder with roughly 21% market share each. While SK Hynix trails Samsung's 38% share in the broader DRAM market, it holds a decisive lead in the specialized memory stacks required for AI hardware.

HBM acts as the critical bridge between AI processors and massive datasets, and this product advantage has fundamentally shifted SK Hynix's geographic and customer revenue base. The United States now generates 65% of the company's total revenue. This US concentration is anchored by a strategic partnership with Nvidia, the dominant designer of AI accelerators. Nvidia alone contributed 24% of SK Hynix's total 2025 sales, making it a single point of both strength and vulnerability.

For market professionals, the appeal of HBM lies in its pricing mechanics. Structural supply shortages provide HBM with greater pricing durability than typical memory products, which historically suffer from severe cyclical downturns. This pricing power helped SK Hynix generate roughly $44 billion from DRAM in 2025, dwarfing its $21 billion in NAND flash revenue.

Despite the record profitability, the company's earnings carry explicit concentration risks. Tying nearly a quarter of total global sales to one customer deviates from standard semiconductor industry diversification. If Nvidia alters its procurement strategy or if AI data center spending slows, SK Hynix's profit margins face outsized downside exposure compared to its more diversified peers.