On April 26, SK Hynix released its first-quarter earnings results. South Korean chipmaker SK hynix’s sales fell 17 percentage q-o-q to 3.65 trillion won and its operating profit tumbled 43 percent to 562 billion won (with a operating margin of 15 percent) due to a drop in shipments of memory chips and price markdowns.
And its net profit slid to 448 billion won (with a net profit margin of 12 percent) in the January-March period owing to corporate tax payments.
Shipments of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) declined 3 percent from the previous quarter on weak demand for personal computers and server and mobile DRAMs. The average selling price was down 14 per cent over the same period, owing to a “delay in demand recovery from the PC segment as well as a slowdown in server and mobile DRAM market growth.
Shipments of NAND flash memory chips shrank 11 percent quarter-on-quarter and the average selling price dipped 12 percent over the cited period.
SK Hynix said: “As regards the DRAM market, it is hard to expect a swift recovery in demand in the near future. However, rising demand for DRAM following the rollouts of new smartphones and new server chipsets will help us strike a balance between supply and demand.”
A SK Hynix official said: “The production of 20-nanometer class DRAM for computers will be scaled up to cover mobile products. Also, we will further ramp up our R&D capabilities to develop 10-nanometer class DRAM.”
As for NAND flash memory chips, SK Hynix plans to bolster the competitiveness of its 3D technology along with a transition into 14-nanometer chips. And it also plans to mass-produce third-generation products with 48 layers sometime in the second half of this year.
