SK Hynix plans to launch a shareholder return plan of approximately $71 billion, with a stock buyback scale of $28.4 billion

According to the Korea Economic Daily, SK Hynix is preparing a shareholder return plan that includes stock buybacks and cash dividends, with a total scale expected to be about 100 trillion won (approximately 71 billion USD).

Among them, the stock buyback scale is expected to reach 40 trillion won (approximately 28.4 billion USD), accounting for more than 2% of the company's total issued shares. This scale is close to the proportion of new shares issued for the American Depositary Receipts (ADR) listing previously by SK Hynix.

Compared to last year's shareholder return scale of about 14.3 trillion won (including about 2.1 trillion won in cash dividends and about 12.2 trillion won in stock cancellations), this plan's scale has increased by about 7 times.

Behind SK Hynix's large-scale return plan is its leading position in the AI infrastructure core storage HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) market. The company expects revenue of about 345.6 trillion won this year, with operating profit of about 266.4 trillion won, representing year-on-year growth of approximately 256% and 464%, respectively.

Previously, SK Hynix stated in its earnings call that HBM4 shipments will officially ramp up in the second half of the year, while advanced process DRAM shipments will also increase, with overall shipments expected to be higher than in the first half.

Market institutions believe that as the demand for AI computing power continues to grow, SK Hynix's improved profitability may drive a recovery in the company's valuation. HSBC previously pointed out that the market's pricing of SK Hynix's profit cycle has been relatively pessimistic, and this shareholder return plan may become one of the important factors for valuation improvement.