The world’s second largest memory chipmaker SK Hynix Inc. beat expectations in its fourth quarter performance blessed with all the possible conditions in its favor - spike in demand for both PCs and mobile devices, improvement in prices, and cheaper won against major currencies.

SK Hynix said it reaped 1.63 trillion won ($1.5 billion) in net income, up a whopping 172.4 percent on quarter and 86.9 percent on year. Operating profit totaled 1.54 trillion won, up 111.6 percent on quarter and 55.3 percent on year with operating margin at 29 percent. It was its best performance since the third quarter of 2015.

Sales reached record quarterly high of 5.36 trillion won.

Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) bit shipment rose 13 percent on quarter in the final quarter of 2016 with the average selling price gaining 14 percent. Due to tight supply and growing demand, strengthening in DRAM chip prices is expected to continue for some time. SK Hynix is the world’s second largest DRAM supplier accountable for 25 percent of the market share.

Bit shipment of non-volatile storage (NAND) flash decreased 3 percent but the average selling price grew 14 percent thanks to increased sales of eMCP products with a price premium.

SK Hynix in a conference call Thursday pledged to invest 7 trillion won this year to hone competitiveness. The investment will go to building a cleanroom on the upper flower of M14 to ramp up NAND flash capacity, expanding 2Znm DRAM, and mass-producing 1Xnm DRAM this year. The chipmaker also aims to start mass-production of 72-layer 3D NAND.

For the whole of 2016, its operating profit was down 39 percent to 3.28 trillion won and sales down 8.5 percent to 17.2 trillion won.

As of 2:45 p.m. Thursday, shares of SK Hynix rose 3.3 percent to 53,400 won.

By Jung Wook

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]