What happened
SK Hynix reported third-quarter results in Korea on October 28, 2026, and investors responded quickly. According to Yahoo Finance, its US-listed shares (NASDAQ: SKHY) rose 8% in premarket trading to $156.78. AFP reported that the Korea-listed shares gained 11% on the day.
The company said operating profit for July through September was 83.33 trillion won, which AFP converted to $62.8 billion. Sales came to 104.61 trillion won. Both revenue and operating profit were records, and AFP described the operating profit gain as 632%.
Not every figure beat expectations. SK Hynix said net profit rose 215.7% to 39.77 trillion won, while Yonhap put the average analyst estimate at 59.67 trillion won. The company therefore set records on two measures but fell short on the bottom line.
A bigger payout for shareholders
The company also announced a new shareholder return plan, which AFP converted to $45 billion. According to the report, the plan is an additional 60 trillion won in returns, following the completion of an earlier 40 trillion won program. SK Hynix also intends to return most of the gains from its Kioxia investment through special dividends.
The coverage Yahoo Finance reviewed did not say how the money would be divided between buybacks and dividends, or when it would be paid. Yahoo Finance's author advised treating the announcement as a stated plan until a regulatory filing supplies those details.
AFP reported that investors had been calling for larger payouts after the shares slipped from their June record highs, amid worries about AI spending by US technology companies. Kim Dae-jong, a business professor at Sejong University, told AFP the stock was down nearly 60% from that peak. He called this "the main reason the company needs to focus on winning back shareholders."
How other memory stocks reacted
Other memory and storage names rose before the US market opened. Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) gained about 4%, SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) about 5%, and Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) less than 2%.
Yahoo Finance described Micron as having the most direct link, because it sells DRAM, the working memory in servers, and HBM, the stacked memory placed alongside AI chips. On a September 30 earnings call, Micron operating chief Manish Bhatia said, "we really don't have line of sight to when supply and demand balance." The article said SK Hynix's quarter supports that view, and that Micron had already issued a revenue forecast before this report.
SanDisk makes NAND, the chips used in solid-state drives, so the SK Hynix numbers gave an early read on demand before its own report, expected October 29 after the close. Western Digital has the weakest connection, according to the article. It sells hard drives and reported on October 22.
Analysts urge caution
The rally followed a weak stretch. Yahoo Finance noted that over the prior month Micron fell about 11%, SanDisk 23% and Western Digital 15%. It added that Bloomberg had run a headline the day before saying strong earnings had not been lifting memory stocks.
MS Hwang of Counterpoint told AFP that "quarterly earnings have not yet reached their peak and that the upward trajectory will likely sustain at least through 2027." He identified the main risk as "a scenario reminiscent of 2018, where cloud service providers simultaneously pull back on their order volumes."
Kim was more cautious, saying "the extraordinary level of earnings the company is generating today may not be sustainable one or two years from now." A headline from Yahoo Finance's syndicated coverage also said the company sees the memory shortage lasting until 2030.
What to watch next
The article's author called the premarket move a relief bounce. In that view, the results support the idea of a memory shortage but do not settle whether earnings have already peaked. The author also noted that HBM is only one part of the broader AI buildout.
The next test is SanDisk's report on October 29. The author said that if SanDisk's revenue beats its own guidance and the shares hold their level in the following session, SK Hynix's quarter could mark the start of a real recovery for memory stocks. If not, the author said, the jump probably came mainly from the shareholder return pledge.
