BlockBeats News, July 13th, according to market sources, Korea Investment Securities has lowered SK Hynix's 2026 and 2027 operating profit forecasts by 9% and 11%, respectively. The institution still maintains a target price of 3.8 million Korean won, indicating that the adjustment is not due to weakening demand, but rather a reevaluation of long-term supply contract prices.

HBM demand remains strong, especially against the backdrop of the AI server and GPU supply chain expansion. KIS expects Hynix's second-quarter revenue to be around 80.9 trillion Korean won, with an operating profit of about 60.4 trillion Korean won. Based on these figures, the operating profit margin is close to 75%, still at a historical high.

KIS's analysis indicates that the issue is not that Hynix is not making money, but rather that it may not be making as much as previously envisioned by the market.

KIS predicts that in the next three to five years, the transaction structure of the storage industry will revolve more around long-term supply contracts. Long-term agreements can lock in customers, capacity, and cash flow, but they also tend to limit manufacturers' ability to capture the upside of spot price increases. When DRAM or HBM spot prices experience temporary highs, long-term contract prices will smooth out profit margins and also restrict the space for further upward profit forecast revisions.

For investors, Hynix's narrative is shifting from "AI memory scarcity" to "how scarcity is priced in." Subsequent large-scale shipments of HBM4 may still drive up average selling prices, but long-term contracts mean that this round of price increases will not be fully reflected in the profit and loss statement in the form of spot prices.

KIS maintains its target price, indicating that it has not changed its view on Hynix's medium- to long-term trends. This adjustment is more like a cooling of valuation assumptions rather than a denial of fundamentals. While short-term stock prices may be impacted by the "profit downgrade" headline, the more substantive question is: after long-term contracts become the industry's main framework, how much of a premium are investors willing to pay for Hynix's certainty.