Hynix Recovery Set to Be Delayed
By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
Hynix Semiconductor, the world’s second-biggest manufacturer of memory chips, is likely to extend its operating losses until the first half of next year as deepening global economic woes spurred by rising energy costs and the U.S. credit crisis will hurt semiconductor sales growth at least until then.
Experts say the company’s fund demand, coupled with creditors’ plan to dispose of their 36 percent stake in Hynix, is also casting a shadow over the company’s short-term future.
``Despite all-out efforts by Hynix to tackle weakening chip prices, it is highly unlikely that the company will post profits until the first half of 2008 on dimming signs of supply and demand balance by then,’’ SK Securities said in a research note Sunday.
The brokerage house emphasized earlier reports that prices of disappearing 512-megabyte dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips sank below $1 as of early this month, down over 90 percent from a year earlier, while the average price of the more profitable NAND flash chips also fell by almost 20 percent from a month earlier.
DRAMs account for about 70 percent of total output of Hynix.
Even iSuppli, a market research firm, cut its forecast for global semiconductor revenue in 2008 to $291.4 billion, up 7.5 percent from 2007. In September, it had expected a 9.3 percent growth for next year.
``Semiconductor market conditions will be extremely weak in the first half of 2008 owing to higher energy costs, the dimming outlook for the U.S. and the ongoing production battle between rivals,’’ the researcher said.
``We expect DRAM prices to recover in the second quarter of 2008 as a seasonal rise in chip sales will spur a recovery,’’ it added.
Separately, the Labor Ministry Friday gave a go-ahead for the company to restart the construction of 300- millimeter wafer fabrication lines in Cheongju, North ChungCheong Province. The construction has been suspended due to an investigation into a recent death of a worker.