SK Hynix $1.5B Revenue Cut Signals Apple iPhone Weakness

SK Hynix cut its revenue forecast by roughly $1.5 billion on Wednesday. The stock fell 8% in Seoul. The South Korean memory maker blamed weaker-than-expected demand for chips used in smartphones and PCs.

Apple is a major customer for SK Hynix's mobile DRAM and NAND flash memory. The revenue cut is the strongest supply-chain signal yet that iPhone demand may be softening heading into the new year. Apple reports earnings in late January.

The weakness is concentrated in mobile and PC memory, SK Hynix said. Its high-bandwidth memory business, which supplies chips for AI data centers, remains strong. That split matters for Apple because the company's product cycle is tied to mobile memory demand.

For Apple suppliers, the risk is most acute for assemblers that carry fixed costs through order fluctuations. The cut will ripple through the supply chain, though the full impact will not be clear until Apple's own guidance. Apple shares have held steady above $245 since the report, supported by buyback flows and options hedging.

The revenue cut lowers SK Hynix's operating profit consensus by about 12% for the current fiscal year, according to Bloomberg-compiled estimates. For Apple, the impact is indirect but the signal is unusually clear because SK Hynix is not a diversified supplier – it gets roughly half its revenue from mobile and PC memory clients.

Apple's own guidance, due in late January, will confirm whether the chip cut reflects a seasonal order shift or a deeper demand problem. The options market is pricing a 4.5% implied move post-earnings, above the 3.2% average for the last four quarters. That tells you positioning is not yet adjusting to the supply-chain signal – it may when Apple speaks.