Bulletin: SK Hynix Has Tight Rating Headroom Despite Improving DRAM Business

This report does not constitute a rating action. HONG KONG (S&P Global Ratings) Oct. 27, 2023--SK Hynix Inc. is showing signs of operating improvements despite the continued tight rating headroom. The Korea-based supplier memory chips released third-quarter results that were largely in line with our expectations. In our view, the memory chip industry, particularly in DRAM, is showing signs of bottoming out. The demand is strong for high-end chips, such as double data rate (DDR5) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM3) chips for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. We believe SK Hynix is positioned well for the upswing in generative AI-related chip demand, given the company's advantage in HBM3 chip development and it having Nvidia as a client. Although SK Hynix' NAND flash

...October 27, 2023 This report does not constitute a rating action. HONG KONG (S&P Global Ratings) Oct. 27, 2023--SK Hynix Inc. is showing signs of operating improvements despite the continued tight rating headroom. The Korea-based supplier memory chips released third-quarter results that were largely in line with our expectations. In our view, the memory chip industry, particularly in DRAM, is showing signs of bottoming out. The demand is strong for high-end chips, such as double data rate (DDR5) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM3) chips for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. We believe SK Hynix is positioned well for the upswing in generative AI-related chip demand, given the company's advantage in HBM3 chip development and it having Nvidia as a client. Although SK Hynix' NAND flash memory division continued its significant losses, the mainstay DRAM business' profit turnaround helped narrow losses in the third quarter. We believe the NAND flash business will need more time to meaningfully...

Bulletin