"All 3 Years' Worth Sold Out" Cheers Markets as "AI Concerns Cleared"

[Anchor]

Next, let's break down the announcement from SK Hynix that drove up stock prices today (the 28th). Hynix announced that it has already sold out all the products it will produce for the next three years, while promising to consistently return its earnings to shareholders.

Here is reporter Hong Yeongjae with the details.

[Reporter]

SK Hynix's third-quarter earnings were released right as the stock market opened at 9 a.m.

Third-quarter revenue reached 104.6155 trillion won, with operating profit hitting 83.3338 trillion won, both surging by over 30 percent compared to the second quarter.

Following this news, the rising stock price jumped once more during the earnings announcement when it was revealed that the next three years' worth of supply has already been completely sold out.

[Park Jun-deok / Head of DRAM Marketing, SK Hynix (from conference call): "In fact, our DRAM and HBM supplies for the next three years are essentially all sold out."]

Evaluated as wiping out concerns that AI investments might be stalling, this remark led to the triggering of a buy-side sidecar just 10 minutes later.

[Ahn Ki-hyun / Executive Director, Korea Semiconductor Industry Association: "If you look at the investment plans of big tech companies, they have announced plans to continue investing even more than before. Therefore, if everything goes according to current projections, you can expect these semiconductor prices to remain stable for the time being."]

In addition, a massive shareholder return package totaling 100 trillion won, the largest ever in the domestic stock market, was unveiled.

Following the 40 trillion won share buyback and cancellation announced last August, the company announced it will return an additional 60 trillion won to shareholders.

The third-quarter cash dividend was set at 20,000 won per share, combining a 10,000 won dividend reflecting earnings and an additional 10,000 won special dividend from the special gains generated by selling its stake in Japanese semiconductor firm Kioxia.

Investors who purchase and hold SK Hynix shares by November 26 will be eligible to receive the dividend.

At the same time, the company plans to purchase and cancel over 30 trillion won worth of treasury shares.

[Kim Woo-hyun / CFO, SK Hynix (from conference call): "We will continuously carry out share buybacks and cancellations so that our per-share value appropriately reflects our intrinsic value."]

Now, market attention is focused on how well Samsung Electronics will be able to meet the heightened expectations of shareholders set by Hynix tomorrow.

(Video Editing: Kim Jong-mi, Design: Kim Yeji)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.