SK hynix Q3 Earnings: 80% Margin vs Micron, Samsung

For every 1,000 won in sales, SK hynix kept 797 won as operating profit. The figures come from the consolidated third-quarter results the company filed on DART on October 28. DART is Korea's counterpart to the SEC's EDGAR system. SK hynix, the South Korean memory chipmaker whose products include the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI servers, posted revenue of 104.6155 trillion won, topping 100 trillion won in a single quarter for the first time. Operating profit came to 83.3338 trillion won, and the company's press release put its operating margin at 80%. Operating profit beat the average analyst estimate of 76.964 trillion won by 8.3%, based on FnGuide's tally (as reported by Etoday). Even so, its margin (79.7% by PRISM's calculation) is still 1.0 percentage point (pp) below the 80.7% GAAP operating margin that Micron, its US rival, posted for the quarter ended September 3.

This article is current as of 3:50 p.m. KST on October 28, 2026. SK hynix's figures are company-reported and haven't been audited yet; its DART filing says they "may change going forward." Samsung Electronics' figures are the preliminary estimates it released on October 8. Operating margins are PRISM calculations, and descriptions of SK hynix's business are based on its earnings presentation. Quotes from SK hynix's Korean-language materials are PRISM translations.

Four chipmakers' latest operating margins, side by side

We set SK hynix beside three companies that reported results in the past month: Micron in the US, Taiwan's TSMC and SK hynix's domestic rival Samsung Electronics.

Table 1. Latest quarterly results (in each company's home currency)

Micron's fiscal quarter ends on a different date, so we used its closest matching quarter.

By margin, the order runs Micron (80.7% GAAP), SK hynix (79.7%), TSMC (58.7%) and Samsung (about 55.1%). The four have different business mixes, so the order shouldn't be read as a league table. The two pure-play memory makers cluster around 80%. TSMC, a foundry, and Samsung, whose consolidated results include smartphones and appliances, sit in the 50s. TSMC's margin slipped 1.6pp from 60.3% in the second quarter (PRISM 5 Things, Issue 3).

An 80% operating margin, a 38% net margin

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In its October 22 monetary policy statement, the Bank of Korea, the country's central bank, cited "concerns over slowing profitability in the semiconductor sector" as a reason stock prices fell. SK hynix's Q3 operating margin rose 3.3pp from the second quarter (76.3% to 79.7%). Operating profit jumped 37.6% from the previous quarter and 632% from a year earlier. Page 5 of the earnings presentation attributes the gain to "rising ASP and expanded sales of high-value-added products, despite the won's strength." In DRAM, bit shipments rose about 10% quarter on quarter, and the average selling price (ASP) rose in the high-20s percent range (page 4).

Net profit came to 39.7756 trillion won, down 58% from 93.9226 trillion won in the second quarter. The net margin fell from 118% to 38%. SK hynix booked large non-operating gains in Q2; in Q3, non-operating items swung to a loss of 32.63 trillion won. Page 6 of the presentation lists 22.92 trillion won in valuation losses on investment assets and 11.63 trillion won in foreign exchange losses as the won strengthened. At the operating level, the stronger won was absorbed by higher prices. Further down the income statement, it showed up as currency losses.

HBM4 expected to overtake HBM3E in Q4

SK hynix's press release said "sales of server DDR5 rose sharply as HBM4 shipments ramped up in earnest." The company expects HBM4, the newest generation of its HBM, to overtake HBM3E in both shipments and revenue in the fourth quarter. Page 11 of the earnings presentation reads: "2027 HBM terms negotiations wrapped up; profitability gap between HBM and conventional DRAM expected to narrow meaningfully."

Of the four companies, only SK hynix mentioned HBM directly in its press release. The term doesn't appear in the body of Micron's or TSMC's releases, and Samsung's preliminary figures came with no business commentary. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said "we expect an even stronger fiscal 2027," and the company guided for next-quarter revenue of $61.5 billion, plus or minus $1.5 billion. On TSMC's October 15 earnings call, Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said of AI demand that "the demand is higher than the supply."

The buyers footing the bill

The opposing view shows up in SK hynix's own materials. In the PC and smartphone box on page 9 of the earnings presentation, the company writes: "Shipments expected to decline due to cost burdens from rising memory prices and supply shortages." The next line adds: "However, growing AI infrastructure demand is expected to outweigh this, sustaining growth in the overall memory market."

The same costs appear in customers' filings. In its 10-Q for the quarter ended June 27, Apple explained a rise in its products gross margin and noted it was "partially offset by higher costs, including memory." A passage on supply-demand imbalances for DRAM and NAND goes on: "The Company expects these trends to intensify."

HP reported revenue of $11.8 billion and a 4.6% operating margin for its Personal Systems (PC) segment in the quarter ended July 31. It listed rising memory and storage costs among its risk factors. TSMC's Wei also said "consumer and price-sensitive end market segments are being challenged due to the impact of rising component prices and more economic uncertainties," adding that TSMC is "being prudent in our business planning going into 2027." He didn't single out memory among those components. We traced how these costs pass through to consumer prices in a PRISM article in July.

What to watch

• Thursday, October 29, 10 a.m. KST Samsung Electronics' earnings call on final Q3 results. It'll be the first look at Q3 figures for its semiconductor (DS) division.
• SK hynix in Q4 This is the quarter that will show whether HBM4 overtakes HBM3E in shipments and revenue, as the company forecasts. FnGuide's consensus estimate for Q4 operating profit is 87.2701 trillion won (as reported by Etoday).
• TSMC in Q4 The company's guidance puts its operating margin at 56.5% to 58.5%. We couldn't confirm Q4 reporting dates for SK hynix or TSMC.