SK Hynix's earnings report falls short of expectations, stock price drops 9% in after-hours trading

July 29th, according to Sina Finance, SK Hynix (SKHY.O) announced its financial report on Wednesday. Driven by increased investment in AI data centers by tech giants, leading to strong demand for advanced memory chips, the company's second-quarter operating profit surged 557% to 60.5 trillion Korean won (approximately $41.62 billion), setting a historical record, compared to 9.2 trillion Korean won in the same period last year. However, this figure fell short of market expectations of 64 trillion Korean won. The primary reason is that its higher proportion of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips compared to competitors meant it could not fully benefit from the current strong price increase cycle for conventional memory chips. This has intensified concerns that the AI boom driving the semiconductor industry may be slowing down. SK Hynix's revenue also missed expectations, with the financial report showing second-quarter revenue of 79 trillion Korean won, versus market expectations of 84 trillion Korean won. Affected by the financial report, SK Hynix's stock, which fell 9% at the close on Tuesday, dropped another 9% in after-hours trading. SanDisk (SNDK.O) and Micron Technology (MU.O) also fell more than 4%, erasing the boost from Seagate Technology's (STX.O) financial report.