South Korea’s memory chip exports to Taiwan surged over 225% in the first half of 2023, driven by the booming demand for AI GPUs and accelerators, which rely heavily on HBM memory chips. SK hynix’s HBM supply to NVIDIA is the primary driver of this surge, solidifying South Korea’s position as a key player in the burgeoning AI industry.
Samsung Electronics has reported a substantial increase in its operating profit for the first quarter of 2024, driven by soaring demand for its servers, memory chips, and storage solutions used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The company’s total revenue rose by 12.8% to KRW 71.2 trillion ($52.2 billion), while net profit surged by 330% to KRW 6.75 trillion ($4.88 billion) compared to the same period last year.
SK Hynix, the second-largest memory chipmaker globally, reported a net profit of 1.92 trillion South Korean won ($1.39 billion) in the first quarter, reversing a loss of 2.58 trillion won logged in the same period a year ago. This marks the first positive income recorded since the third quarter of 2022. The strong performance was attributed to increased sales of AI server products and high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which caters to the surging demand for AI chipsets. SK Hynix plans to increase supply of HBM3E and introduce 32GB DDR5 products this year to meet the growing demand for AI memory. Despite a 4% slide in share prices on Thursday morning, SK Hynix shares have jumped over 100% in the past year.
South Korean memory manufacturer SK Hynix has triumphantly navigated last year’s downturn to emerge with significant profitability in the first quarter of 2023. Riding the wave of the booming AI industry, the company reported a staggering 144.3% increase in revenue to 12.42 trillion won. SK Hynix’s dominance in supplying high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to Nvidia’s AI chip platform has been a major driving force behind this growth.
Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX) reported mixed results for its fiscal first quarter of 2024, meeting revenue estimates but exceeding earnings expectations. The data storage company’s revenue declined by 11% year-over-year to $1.66 billion, slightly below analysts’ estimates. However, Seagate’s non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) of $0.33 came in significantly ahead of consensus, marking an improvement from a loss per share of $0.28 in the same quarter last year.
