SK hynix Earnings: Memory Maker's Operating Margin Now Tops Nvidia's

By Stock Titan Editorial Team Published October 27, 2026, 08:57 PM EDT

What were SK hynix’s third quarter 2026 earnings?

SK hynix, the South Korean chipmaker, reported sales of 104.6 trillion won for July to September, its first quarter above 100 trillion. That was more than four times its sales a year earlier, by our calculation.

Operating profit was about seven times a year earlier. At the quarter’s average exchange rate from the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, it comes to about $58.8 billion, by our calculation.

The chips cost far less to make than they sold for, with the cost of goods sold at 15.0 trillion won for the quarter, per the earnings presentation. Net profit, what is left after every gain, loss and tax, was much lower, at 39.8 trillion won, for reasons a later section explains.

Is SK hynix’s operating margin higher than Nvidia’s?

Nvidia designs the AI processors that data centers are racing to install, and SK hynix supplies the high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, stacked beside them. HBM4, its newest generation, began shipping in volume in the quarter, and SK hynix expects it to outsell the previous generation in the fourth quarter.

SK hynix does not say how much of its profit comes from HBM and how much from its ordinary DRAM. Its presentation says only that its 2027 HBM negotiations are finalized and that it expects the profitability gap between the two to narrow meaningfully. It does not say which of the two earns more.

In its quarter to July 26, 2026, Nvidia reported $63.7 billion of operating income, its name for operating profit. That is more in dollars than SK hynix’s, and 66.2% of Nvidia’s revenue, by our calculation.

SK hynix’s margin is about 13.4 percentage points higher, calculated before rounding. The quarters do not line up exactly, and SK hynix reports under Korean accounting rules while Nvidia uses American ones.

A year earlier the order was the other way around, with Nvidia at 60.8% and SK hynix at 47%, by our calculation.

Micron, the US memory maker, had 80.7%, by our calculation, for its quarter to September 3, so both memory makers reported higher operating margins than Nvidia. Microsoft, as a software comparison, had 45.1% in its quarter to June 30, according to StockTitan’s financials data.

Show the data

Category	Value
SK hynix, Jul to Sep 2026	79.7%
Micron, quarter to Sep 3, 2026	80.7%
Nvidia, Apr 27 to Jul 26, 2026	66.2%
Microsoft, Apr to Jun 2026	45.1%

Why SK hynix memory chip prices are rising

DRAM is the working memory in servers, PCs and phones, and it was 75% of SK hynix’s sales. The presentation gives the price rise only as that band, not as an exact figure. In NAND, the storage memory in solid-state drives, shipments fell slightly while the average price rose by a percentage in the mid 20s.

The company credits higher average prices and more sales of its higher-value products for the jump in profit. Of the 25.3 trillion won of sales it added from the second quarter to the third, about 90% became extra operating profit, by our calculation.

That is a long way from 2023. In early 2023, during a slump in memory prices, SK hynix was losing money, with an operating margin of minus 67%. Memory has gone through booms and busts before, which our article on Micron’s record quarter traces.

Show the data

Category	Value
1Q23	-67%
2Q23	-39%
3Q23	-20%
4Q23	3%
1Q24	23%
2Q24	33%
3Q24	40%
4Q24	41%
1Q25	42%
2Q25	41%
3Q25	47%
4Q25	58%
1Q26	72%
2Q26	76%
3Q26	80%

SK hynix says demand will outrun supply “through 2030,” because the newest chipmaking processes are hard and new factories take years to build.

Why SK hynix expects fewer PCs and phones to be sold

Under a heading for PCs and smartphones in its market outlook, SK hynix writes that it expects shipments “to decrease due to cost burdens from rising memory prices and supply shortages,” and that AI demand will more than offset that decline for memory. The outlook gives no size for the drop, and a chipmaker’s selling price is not the price people pay for a laptop or a phone.

For 2027, SK hynix expects what it calls achievable DRAM demand, counted by capacity, to grow by a percentage in the mid 20s.

How much of SK hynix’s 2027 and 2028 production is under contract?

SK hynix has signed long-term agreements with 14 large customers, among them the biggest cloud computing companies, and says these contracts usually run five years. Some customers are discussing longer terms. The volume covered equals more than 50% of total production capacity for 2027 and for 2028.

The price follows the market, within a range agreed with each customer, and the presentation lists “safeguards to ensure contract fulfillment, including deposits.” The company does not say how wide the ranges are or how large the deposits are.

Our reading is that these agreements make SK hynix’s volumes for 2027 and 2028 easier to foresee, while its prices still follow the market. They cover production capacity, not revenue, so they do not fix what SK hynix will earn. The company also expects spending on new factories and equipment in 2027 to rise significantly from 2026, without giving a figure.

Why was SK hynix’s net profit less than half its operating profit?

That was 58% below April to June, when large investment gains lifted net profit above operating profit, per the presentation for that quarter. Against a year earlier, net profit was about three times higher.

SK hynix’s presentation lists a foreign exchange loss of 11.63 trillion won “due to fall in exchange rates.” The won gained sharply on the dollar during the quarter. A dollar bought about 12.5% fewer won at the end of September than at the end of June, by our calculation from Federal Reserve rates.

When the won gains, money that a Korean company holds or is owed in dollars is worth fewer won once it is counted in its accounts. The presentation does not say which ones produced this loss.

The bigger item is a loss of 22.92 trillion won on investments the company holds, which it calls an investment asset related loss. The company does not name the investment. It does say the special dividend shares this year’s gains on its investment in Kioxia, a Japanese memory maker.

After the two losses and some smaller gains, profit before tax was 50.7 trillion won, and tax took 10.9 trillion won. Both losses sit below operating profit, so the 80% operating margin does not include them.

Show the data

Step	Value
Operating profit	83.33
Foreign exchange loss	-11.63
Investment asset loss	-22.92
Other items	+1.93
Tax	-10.93
Net profit	39.78

How much is the SK hynix dividend?

Shareholders on the company’s register on November 30, 2026 receive the dividend, with payment expected in December. Its depositary receipts, certificates standing for its shares, trade in New York as SKHY. Each stands for a tenth of a share, per the company’s listing page, so it carries a tenth of a share’s dividend.

Buybacks, the company buying its own shares, make up most of the 2026 plan. SK hynix cancels most of what it buys, so each remaining share owns a bigger slice of the company. The 40 trillion won buyback announced in August is finished, and those shares are due to be cancelled on November 5, per a filing with the SEC. A new 20 trillion won buyback is split between cancellation and shares for employee pay.

Even so, the average number of shares rose to 722 million, from 710 million in April to June. In July SK hynix sold new shares for its New York listing, per its prospectus. The presentation gives no count for September 30, and the August buyback kept running until October 23, per the SEC filing.

Debt is small, with net cash of 98.7 trillion won at September 30, its cash minus its borrowings. The business also brought in plenty of cash. After paying for new plant and equipment, the quarter left 42.1 trillion won, by our calculation, three times the third-quarter dividend.

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