Recently, SK Hynix’s year-end bonus plan has sparked heated discussions around the world. It is reported that the per capita bonus of its Korean employees may be as high as 6.1 million yuan. It is understood that this statement originated from the prediction of international investment bank Macquarie Securities. The investment bank estimates that if SK Hynix’s operating profit reaches 447 trillion won in 2027, based on a simple calculation of 10% of operating profit and the total number of approximately 35,000 employees at the end of last year, the total scale of dividends will reach approximately 44.7 trillion won, and the per capita bonus will be approximately 1.29 billion won, which is nearly 6.1 million yuan when converted into RMB.
In response to rumors of high bonuses circulating online, on May 9, SK hynix responded to the media saying that since the annual performance of this year and next year has not yet been determined, the size of the bonus cannot be predicted.
At the same time, the company also stated that it has established a new system at the headquarters level, which uses 10% of operating profits as a source of funds and issues performance bonuses once a year.
Reviewing past performance, SK Hynix’s revenue in 2025 reached 97.1467 trillion won, a year-on-year increase of more than 30 trillion won; operating profit was 47.2063 trillion won, doubling year-on-year, setting a new historical annual performance record.
Based on 35,000 employees, the per capita bonus distribution last year was about 140 million Korean won, equivalent to RMB 650,000.
Entering the first quarter of 2026, the company’s performance is still growing strongly. Single-quarter revenue was 52.5763 trillion won, operating profit was 37.6103 trillion won, and quarterly sales exceeded the 50 trillion won mark for the first time.
Among them, operating profit soared 405% year-on-year, and gross profit margin climbed to 79%. Its super profitability has attracted the attention of the technology industry.
The surge in performance is mainly due to the explosion of demand in the global AI industry. SK Hynix has a market share of over 50% in the high-bandwidth memory HBM field, firmly leading the industry and taking the initiative in pricing.
Driven by the industry boom, the prices of its server memory and flash memory products have surged by 60% and 70% respectively month-on-month.
As the topic of high performance bonuses ferments, interesting and heated discussions have arisen on Korean social networks. SK hynix employees’ work uniforms have been ridiculed as “dating tools”, and SK hynix employees are highly sought after in the marriage and love market.
