Shares of SK hynix have surged 22.5% in five trading days, climbing from ₩2,382,000 to ₩2,919,000, as two converging narratives fuel relentless buying: an AI-memory supercycle showing no signs of cooling, and employee bonuses so enormous that South Korea's central bank now treats them as a threat to national price stability.
A Single Quarter Nearly Matched an Entire Year's Profit
SK hynix posted Q1 2026 revenue of ₩52.6 trillion, operating profit of ₩37.6 trillion at a 72% operating margin, and net profit of ₩40.3 trillion — every metric an all-time quarterly high.
Q1 alone generated more operating profit than all of fiscal 2024 (₩23.5 trillion) and nearly matched FY2025's full-year total in just three months. The engine is specialized high-bandwidth memory chips that sit next to AI processors in data centers — SK hynix dominates with roughly 62% market share in that segment, and capacity is sold out through 2026.
Bonuses So Big the Central Bank Took Notice
The Bank of Korea named SK hynix and Samsung bonuses as a risk to inflationary stability in a June 17 report, noting IT-sector special pay jumped 60.6% year-over-year in Q1 while wage growth elsewhere was just 2.1%.
If SK hynix hits its projected ₩250 trillion annual operating profit, employees could receive average bonuses exceeding ₩700 million (~$454,000) each. For investors, the BOK's alarm is paradoxically bullish — it quantifies just how profitable the company has become.
The Profit-Sharing Formula Creates a Growing Cost Question
SK hynix commits a fixed 10% of operating profit to employee bonuses, making labor costs volatile but tightly linked to earnings.
Analysts project 2026 operating profit at ₩230 trillion, nearly five times last year's figure. That means roughly ₩23 trillion flowing to workers before shareholders see dividends. The company is also expected to spend ₩45–90 trillion on shareholder returns, including buybacks, in 2026. Funding both while raising capex to around ₩50 trillion tests whether even a 72% margin generates enough cash.
Memory Shortages Could Sustain the Rally — or Mask the Cycle's Peak
Samsung's memory chief warned in April that "significant shortages" across memory products are expected through at least 2027.
TrendForce projects DRAM prices rising more than 70% in 2026. That pricing power underpins the bull case. But memory is historically cyclical, and when bonus pools, capex, and buybacks all scale with profit, any demand softening would squeeze all three simultaneously.