SK hynix (SKHY:NASDAQ) shares rose about 8% in Seoul on Wednesday morning, after the company posted record third-quarter results and its board approved the next piece of a ₩100 trillion (about $75 billion) shareholder return plan for 2026.
The quarter itself was enormous. Revenue hit about $78.9 billion and operating profit reached about $62.8 billion, up 38% from the second quarter, for an 80% operating margin. Net profit fell 58% from the second quarter to about $30 billion, but only because the second quarter included about $47.7 billion of one-time gains, mostly from Kioxia (285A).
What SK hynix Actually Decided Today
The $75 billion includes the roughly $30 billion buyback announced in August, which SK hynix finished last week. That leaves about $45 billion in new returns. Today’s board decisions were:
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A third-quarter dividend of about $10.6 billion, or about $15 per common share. The second-quarter dividend was about 28 cents.
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A buyback of about $15.1 billion, of which only about $7.5 billion will be cancelled. The rest goes to employee compensation and doesn’t count toward the $75 billion.
Half the dividend, about $7.50 per common share, is a special payout from the Kioxia gains. That works out to about $5.3 billion, less than half the roughly $12 billion special reported on Monday. SK hynix says the rest arrives with the year-end dividend.
Is ₩100 Trillion Big for SK hynix?
Against the stock, yes. TIKR puts SK hynix’s market cap at about $737 billion, so the plan equals roughly 10% of the company in a single year.
Against the cash, it’s aggressive but covered. Free cash flow nearly doubled to $17.9 billion in 2025 and hit about $69 billion over the 12 months to June. The plan tops that trailing figure, although the comparison leaves out a third quarter that produced around $62.8 billion of operating profit on its own. On top of that, net cash of near $74.4 billion at the end of September gives SK hynix plenty of room.
The valuation is where it gets strange. SK hynix trades at 3.3x forward earnings, close to its 3x low and far under its 8.9x average since late 2023.
At 3.3x, every share SK hynix cancels comes cheap.
TIKR Tracks 16 Analysts on SK hynix. How Many Say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on SK hynix, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See SK hynix’s Analyst Ratings
Why the Market Still Doubts SK hynix
A 3.3x multiple says investors expect memory earnings to fall hard, the way they did in 2023. SK hynix’s answer today was its contracts. Long-term agreements with 14 major customers now cover more than half of its 2027 and 2028 capacity, and management expects demand to outrun supply through 2030.
