Shares of South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix rose sharply on Wednesday, driven by optimistic market expectations for its performance after peer Samsung Electronics released a better-than-expected quarterly earnings outlook. Samsung Electronics announced on Tuesday that it expects its first-quarter operating profit to grow more than eightfold, significantly surpassing analyst forecasts. The substantial profit improvement comes as supply tightness and rising chip prices, fueled by surging demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure, benefit the industry. On Wednesday, Korea Investment & Securities raised its full-year operating profit forecast for SK Hynix by 28% to 216 trillion won ($146.55 billion)—a figure more than four times the projection for 2025. The revision reflects higher-than-expected price increases for both DRAM and NAND flash memory chips. SK Hynix's stock climbed 15% to 1.05 million won ($712.20) per share, outpacing Samsung's 8.7% gain and the broader market's 7% rise. SK Hynix, the world's second-largest memory chipmaker after Samsung Electronics, is scheduled to report its January-March earnings later this month.
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