Friday, February 15, 2008
Hynix Semiconductor, the world’s No. 2 dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chipmaker after Samsung Electronics, is likely to resume selling DRAM chips on the spot market possibly from the second quarter of this year.
``It is too early to tell but we don’t rule out the possibility,’’ a high-ranking Hynix official told The Korea Times on Thursday.
The official, who asked not to be identified, on the sensitivity of the issue said the chip supply to the volatile spot market does not necessarily mean that the company is changing its policy to focus on more stable long-term contracts.
In September last year, Hynix stopped providing DRAM chips to the spot market after its second-quarter profits dropped 35 percent due to the supply glut in the chip industry.
Hynix had previously sold about 16 percent of its total DRAM production on the spot market, with the remainder going to contracted buyers such as PC makers. DRAM chips are widely used in PCs.
``Still, we need to wait longer until prices rise up to the proper level,’’ the official said.
Although the global chip industry still suffers from ever-declining chip prices, prices of an outdated 512Mb DDR2 chip remains between $0.98 to $1.2 on an expectation that production cut by Taiwanese and Japanese manufacturers to make the chip industry slightly rebound.
In January, the spot market witnessed the price-per-unit crossover between 1Gb and 512Mb DRAM, meaning that the 1Gb DRAM price per bit became cheaper than the 512Mb DRAM price per bit. Moreover, the contract price rose 4 percent from early January.
Responding to positive signs in the DRAM industry, Hynix has been making every effort to cut costs by injecting more capital into its China plant to produce 12-inch wafers and shift to more profitable over 1Gb chips. The company plans to raise the portion of over 1Gb chips to 60 percent of the total this year.
``The strong resilience of DRAM prices will not last long, given the extensive concealed inventory in DRAM companies. However, the price turnaround is likely to continue in the aftermath of production cuts by Japanese and Taiwanese chipmakers,’’ an analyst at a local brokerage said.
Hynix, which suffered a net loss of 465 billion won in the fourth quarter, the first in five years, expects its shipments of DRAM chips to rise by up to 60 percent this year and NAND chip shipments to grow 120 to 130 percent.
By: DocMemory
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