May 05, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] SK hynix said on April 25 that it would make investments to beef up production facilities for 3-D NAND flash memory chips this year, as previously planned, regardless of its ongoing bid for Toshiba’s chip business unit.

“The company will execute the 7-trillion-won (US$6.2 billion) investment plan to beef up infrastructure as we had previously planned,” said an official from the chip manufacturer in a conference call early in the morning.

“We are not sure how the ongoing bid process for the Toshiba division will end, but there will be no change in SK hynix’s capex for 3-D NAND flash memory this year.”

Global chip producers, as well as tech companies such as Apple that aim to increase presence in the NAND sector, have joined the fray to acquire the memory business unit of Toshiba, the second largest NAND flash memory maker after tech giant Samsung Electronics.

SK hynix, whose flagship products are DRAM and NAND flash memory, joined the bidding race in February. It initially proposed 2 trillion yen (US$18.20 billion) for the acquisition, lower than quotes of other companies such as Foxconn, which offered 3 trillion yen.

The chip business arm of SK Group recently teamed up with US equity firm Bain Capital hoping to receive more financial backing.

SK hynix also said in the conference call that it would start producing 3-D NAND flagship memory chips, which stack 72 layers of cells inside, for mobile and solid-state drive devices in the later half this year.

It earned 2.46 trillion won in operating profit for the January-March period -- a record first quarter profit -- up 72 percent from a year earlier. Its quarterly revenue increased 339.2 percent on-year to 6.29 trillion won.

The firm attributed the increasing prices of DRAM chips to the robust profits in the first three months.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)