SK Hynix: What shall we do with all the cash?

What happened

SK Hynix reported Q3 2026 revenue up 328% Y/Y to ₩104 trillion ($78.9 billion), surpassing ₩100 trillion for the first time, with net income up 216% to ₩39.8 trillion (c$30 billion), an operating margin of 80 percent, and a net cash position of ₩98.7 trillion ($74 billion), effectively debt-free. The company abandoned the US IPO of its Solidigm subsidiary and discontinued its review, citing careful consideration of recent financial market conditions and other factors; the IPO had been intended to raise external capital for expanding Solidigm's production facilities. SK Hynix said HBM4 is becoming its mainstream product as of this quarter and should overtake HBM3E in volume and revenue next quarter; it has 14 LTAs (Long-Term buying/supply Agreements) covering more than half of its memory capacity for 2027 and 2028, and it sees memory demand exceeding supply through to 2030. Its spending decisions include returning most of its Kioxia share gain to shareholders, with ₩100 trillion ($75.4 billion) going to shareholders this year; ramping the M15X fab's output to maximum capacity by the end of the year to increase HBM4 production; raising the proportion of its 321-layer NAND process to more than half of its domestic production capacity in the fourth quarter to increase high-performance, high-capacity eSSD supply; and rising production output in 2027 as the Yongin Phase 1 plant enters full-scale operation. Paying for a US fab for Solidigm remains unsolved, with the company still able to use about another $30 billion, per the source.

Impact and signal

Affected components and suppliers

Source and time

Source: Blocks & Files · 10/28/2026 · View original source