SK Hynix's operating profit jumps 557%, hands back $75bn

Revenue crossed 100 trillion won for the first time in company history, hitting 104.61 trillion won as operating profit rose 557.2% to 83.33 trillion won, according to filings cited by Yonhap. That beat the Bloomberg consensus of roughly 77.5 trillion won, meaning Wall Street still can't model this cycle properly even with a quarter of hindsight. SK Hynix is now handing back more than 100 trillion won, about $75 billion, through dividends and buybacks while telling investors it expects memory demand to outstrip supply through 2030. Management is paying out aggressively while simultaneously claiming the boom has five more years to run, which only works if nobody else builds enough capacity to undercut them. Samsung and Micron are both chasing the same HBM contracts, and the moment one of them lands a qualification win at Nvidia's expense, these margins start to look like a peak rather than a plateau.