Korea Investment & Securities (KIS) projects SK Hynix Q2 operating profit at KRW
60.4 trillion, about 8% below the KRW 65 trillion market consensus. KIS says
company fundamentals remain solid and profitability is strong, but HBM long-term
contracts mute earnings cyclicality and HBM4 lacks the same short-term
spot-price upside as commodity DRAM. KIS warns HBM4 pricing is highly uncertain:
HBM4 is highly customized and includes logic units, so realized prices will
depend on factors including NVIDIA contract pricing, HBM4 performance, power
consumption and yields, allocation of advanced-packaging costs, whether NVIDIA
will pay a supply-stability premium, and SK Hynix’s eventual order share — none
of which are fully transparent. KIS likely used conservative HBM price and
margin assumptions, which helps explain its below-consensus Q2 call. Crucially,
‘‘average selling price reverting to market average’’ should be read as SK
Hynix’s overall DRAM blended ASP growth converging toward the market average as
HBM4 scales, not HBM4 falling to commodity DRAM price levels. Memory
fundamentals remain strong; main downside risk is macro.
