SK Hynix rules out any investment in Japan's Toshiba

By Park Sae-jin Posted : January 26, 2017, 11:28 Updated : January 26, 2017, 11:28

[Courtesy of SK Hynix]


SK Hynix ruled out any partnership or financial deal with Japan's Toshiba as the South Korean chipmaker reported a 55.3 percent jump in operating profit for the fourth quarter of last year, helped by a steady recovery in memory chip prices.

There have been news reports that Toshiba hit by snowballing losses in the nuclear division may spin-off its lucrative NAND flash unit and sell a stake to its US rival Western Digita.

Toshiba is currently mass-producing 48-layer 3D NAND and plans to mass produce 64-layer 3D NAND of this year. Samsung dominates the global NAND flash market with a 36.6 percent share. SK Hynix stood fifth following Samsung, Toshiba, Western Digital and Micron Technology.

In a conference call Thursday, SK Hynix said it was closely watching Toshiba's situation but said nothing has been decided on its possible investment in the Japanese company.  Hynix also said it has no short-term plan to build or run a production base in the United States despite concern about trade protectionism advocated by President Donald Trump.

In the October-December period, SK Hynix posted an operating profit of 1.53 trillion won (1.31 billion US dollars ), the highest since the third quarter of 2015. Sales were up 21.3 percent on-year to a quarterly record high of 5.3 trillion won.

For all of 2016, net profit fell 31.5 percent from a year ago to 2.96 trillion won. Total sales fell 8.5 percent on-year to 17.19 trillion won and operating profit was down 38.6 percent to 3.27 trillion won.

 
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