Mirae Asset Securities lowered its second quarter operating-profit outlook for SK Hynix by 12% [3].
The revision signals immediate pressure on the semiconductor giant as falling average selling prices for core memory products challenge short-term earnings stability.
Analyst Kim Young-geon revised the operating-profit forecast from 70.7 trillion KRW [1] down to 62.3 trillion KRW [2]. Kim said this adjustment follows a decrease in the average selling price, or ASP, for DRAM by eight% [4] and NAND by five% [5].
Despite the quarterly dip, the long-term outlook remains positive. Mirae Asset projects that SK Hynix will record an operating profit of 389 trillion KRW in 2027 [7], which would represent a 45.7% increase year-over-year [8]. This growth is expected to be driven by price gains in High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), and the stability of long-term supply contracts.
Kim said that the company appears to have secured long-term supply contracts (LTA) for approximately 50% of its sales [6]. He said that while these contracts add stability, they also reduce the company's exposure to speculative demand from buyers who fear procurement uncertainty.
The shift toward these locked-in contracts suggests a strategic pivot to mitigate the volatility of the spot market. While the current pricing environment for DRAM and NAND creates a headwind for the second quarter, the demand for specialized AI-related memory is expected to sustain the company's upward trajectory over the next few years.
“Mirae Asset lowered its second quarter operating-profit outlook for SK Hynix by 12%”
The divergence between SK Hynix's short-term profit dip and its aggressive 2027 growth projection highlights a transition in the semiconductor industry. By securing long-term contracts for half of its sales, the company is trading the potential high gains of speculative market spikes for predictable revenue streams. This strategy, combined with the premium pricing of HBM for AI applications, suggests that SK Hynix is positioning itself to survive commodity price volatility by becoming an essential infrastructure provider for the AI era.
