SK Hynix has reinforced their financial structure. They have been suffering from billions USD of debt 5~6 years ago but their situation has been changed around. Their share and profit rate has speedily grown by expanding the 25 nanometer(㎚) D Ram portion by 60% in 2nd quarter and beginning 36 level 3D NAND Flash production in the 3rd quarter.

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SK Hynix has announced on the 23rd that in 1st quarter they have reached 4.5 billion USD in sales and 1.5 billion USD in business profit. Their business profit rate has increased gradually to 33% from last year’s 28%. Offseason effected in 6%, 5% decrease compared to last quarter in comparison sales and business profit. Yet compared to same quarter last year, they have recorded 29%, 50% growth in results.

Demand for D Ram for PC and consumer had decreased in the 1st quarter but demand for server D Ram had increased. This supported the shipments decrease only by 5% and average sale price (ASP) by 4%. NAND Flash for mobile demand had canceled out the effect of offseason, which helped maintain the shipment amount and ASP went down by 7%.

With SK Hynix’s gradual growth in results, they have exceeded their loan (3.3 billion USD) with 3.9 billion USD in cash for the first time. The debt had decreased 1.1 billion USD less and cash increased 1billion USD more compared to last year.

SK Hynix foresees that D Ram for mobile will exceed D Ram for PC in the 2nd quarter. NAND flash for mobile will ship out their 16 nano triple level cell (TLC) product in the 2nd quarter. They’re targeting to increase the TLC NAND portion to 40% by the end of the year.

D Ram will expand 25 nano portion by more than 60% and insert wafer in the 2nd quarter to increase production of 20 nano products. D Ram for server will increase DDR4’s portion by more than 30% and start shipments for LPDDR4.

NAND Flash is planning to finish developing and start producing 36 level 3D NAND, which used to apply to computing platform. Soon they will be evaluating production for 48 multi level cell (MLC) NAND around the end of the year.

Investment in plant and equipment for 1st quarter used up 1.85 billion USD out of 4.6 billion USD budget for this year. They will be bringing in equipments in 2nd quarter as the construction for M14 is coming to a near end. D Ram 80%, NAND 20% will be the ratio.

Staff Reporter Bae, Okjin | withok@etnews.com

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<Table. SK Hynix 2015 1st quarter results>