# SK Hynix just posted a 76% operating margin and it’s reshaping the memory chip race > Source: > Published: 2026-08-20 21:33:01+00:00 Via tomshardware.com # SK Hynix just posted a 76% operating margin and it’s reshaping the memory chip race The South Korean chipmaker's Q2 2026 results reveal how AI infrastructure spending is minting extraordinary profits in the HBM market Operating margins above 70% are the kind of numbers that make investors do a double-take. SK Hynix just reported a 76% operating margin for Q2 2026, up from 41% a year earlier, on the back of an AI-driven memory boom that is rewriting what profitability looks like in the semiconductor industry. The company’s operating profit hit 60.54 trillion won, roughly $41.7 billion, a 557% year-over-year increase. ## How a chip company prints 83% gross margins The short version: high-bandwidth memory. SK Hynix commands approximately 58% of the global HBM market, compared to Micron’s 21%. HBM is the specialized memory that sits directly on AI accelerator chips, and every major AI data center build-out needs it in quantity. SK Hynix’s gross margin for the quarter came in at 83%, a figure more commonly associated with software businesses than factories that smelt silicon wafers. The previous quarter, Q1 2026, was not exactly a slow warmup either. Revenue reached 52.58 trillion won, with an operating margin of 72% and operating profit of 37.61 trillion won. Even with those numbers, SK Hynix slightly missed some analyst forecasts, which illustrates the strange position the company now occupies: a business growing at a pace that would have seemed implausible three years ago, still somehow falling short of elevated Wall Street expectations. ## The AI memory boom has a competitive scoreboard Micron crossed the $1 trillion market cap threshold in May 2026, a milestone that preceded SK Hynix reaching a similar valuation earlier this year. SanDisk, which focuses on NAND flash rather than DRAM, reported a gross margin of 78.4% in a recent quarter and has projected it will sustain margins above 80% through 2030. SK Hynix pulled ahead specifically in HBM by being earlier and more aggressive in qualifying its chips with Nvidia and other AI chip designers. Micron, at roughly 21% HBM market share, is also the only major HBM supplier with significant US-based manufacturing, which gives it a geopolitical tailwind that neither SK Hynix nor Samsung can replicate. ## What these margins mean for the memory cycle Unlike commodity DRAM or NAND, HBM requires far more complex manufacturing, uses advanced packaging techniques like chip stacking, and qualifies into specific AI chip designs over a long lead time. That qualification process creates switching costs and supply constraints that are structurally different from commodity memory markets. **Disclosure:** This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our [Editorial Policy](https://cryptobriefing.com/editorial-policy/).