The company told investors that supply is not keeping pace with market growth. Given the technical difficulty of leading-edge processes and the long lead time needed to build new production facilities, it expects demand to exceed supply through 2030, even as it works to expand its factories.

The numbers back up the confidence. Quarterly revenue came in at ₩104.6 trillion, about $78.1 billion, up 328 percent year over year, while operating profit hit ₩87.68 trillion, roughly $62.8 billion, up 486 percent. SK Hynix has 14 long-term deals with major buyers who will collectively take more than half of its output during 2027 and 2028, and some customers want to extend those agreements. The contracts include a mechanism that reflects market conditions within an agreed price range, which the company says secures stable profitability while allowing flexible responses to market changes.

There is a knock-on cost for everyone else. On the earnings call, chief financial officer Kim Woo-hyun predicted that shipment volumes for PCs and mobile devices are expected to decrease because of the cost burden from rising memory prices and supply shortages. The company also outlined plans to scale up HBM4 production, which it expects to surpass HBM3E in both shipment volume and revenue in the fourth quarter, rapidly increase its use of 1c process technology, expand DDR5 and LPDDR5 SOCAMM sales for AI servers, and develop NAND around HBF technology for AI services. Investors took the outlook as a sign the AI boom has further to run, sending shares up about three percent in after-hours trading.