SK Hynix Inc, a supplier of memory chips to Apple Inc, posted third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates, as increased demand and reduced inventories fed a rally in semiconductor prices.
Operating income was 726 billion won (US$642 million) in the three months ended September, the Icheon, South Korea-based company said yesterday. That compares with the 660.4 billion won average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
While SK Hynix is tapping into rising demand for memory in mobile devices and PCs, it is being helped by buoyant prices as manufacturers limit production increases. Apple, Hynix’s biggest customer, released new iPhones last month and Chinese vendors are adding premium components to stimulate sales.
“Temporary peak in demand isn’t really important. The important thing is how slowly and gradually the supply goes up,” Daishin Securities Co analyst Kim Kyung-min said. “I think next year’s outlook is also pretty good.”
The company’s shares rose 2.2 percent to 41,050 won in Seoul, extending this year’s advance to 33.5 percent. The stock slid 36 percent last year.
Apple provides about 8 percent of Hynix sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Prices of benchmark DDR3 4Gb DRAM chips rose to US$2.01 as of Sept. 30 compared with US$1.73 a quarter earlier, according to InSpectrum Tech Inc.
The flash NAND market will sustain a positive trend, company said.
Hynix posted net income of 596.8 billion won, beating estimates of 498.1 billion won.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
RSS