SK Hynix Inc., the world’s second-largest memory chip maker, achieved new historic highs in operating and net profits as well as in sales in the third quarter, benefiting from the semiconductor boom amid the industrial evolution to data-based automation and digitalization.

The South Korean chipmaker’s earnings guidance for the July-September period released on Thursday showed that its operating profit surged 415 percent on year and 23 percent on quarter to hit a fresh high of 3.74 trillion won ($3.32 billion). Sales reached 8.1 trillion won, up 91 percent on year and 21 percent on quarter. Net profit also soared 411 percent to 3.06 trillion won from a year earlier.

Operating profit came in slightly below the market consensus, which had forecast 3.83 trillion won on sales of 7.94 trillion won.

Operating margin, which measures income against sales, remained unchanged on quarter at 46 percent.

Accumulated profit for the first nine months of the year reached 9.3 trillion won.

As of 2:00. p.m. Thursday, shares of SK Hynix were down 2.1 percent at 80,000 won on profit-taking.

Record performance in the third quarter was widely anticipated as the price of its mainstay product dynamic random access memory (DRAM) further strengthened due to seasonal demand ahead of the shopping season. Demand for big-data servers also remained strong.

DRAM shipment jumped 17 percent on quarter and its average price by 6 percent.

The average price of NAND flash memory that powers mobile devices fell 3 percent on quarter, but shipment grew 16 percent on release of new smartphone models.

The company expects demand for memory chips to remain strong until the end of the year due to the rapid expansion of cloud services and growing need for smarter multi-task machines and devices.

Memory chip output will continue to expand by double digits next year, Lee Seok-hui, chief operating officer at SK Hynix, said during a conference call.

He predicted growth in DRAM bit volume to be slightly over 20 percent next year driven by demand in servers and mobile devices. Bit growth for NAND flash is estimated in the mid to upper 30 percent range on strong demand for high-definition photos and videos.

The outlook for next year remains equally bright as the firm would begin turning out next-generation 10-nano-range DRAM and 72-layer 3D NAND flash chips in the fourth quarter.

Robust performance would further lift its upbeat portfolio as the chipmaker is part of the multinational consortium that has recently won over the world’s second-largest NAND flash unit of Toshiba Corp.

By Song Sung-hoon and Kim Hyo-jin

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