SK Hynix: Fiscal 3Q18 Financial Results

(in billion KRW)	3Q17	3Q18	Growth
Revenue	8,100	11,417	*41%*
Net income	3,056	4,692	54%

SK Hynix Inc. announced financial results for its third quarter 2018 ended September 30, 2018.

It reported its new record-high quarterly revenue, operating profit, and net income.

The consolidated third quarter revenue was 11.42 trillion won while the operating profit amounted to 6.47 trillion won and the net income 4.69 trillion won.

Even though DRAM price increase has slowed and the price of NAND flash continued to decline, revenue and operating profit rose by 10% and 16%, respectively, compared to the previous quarter, thanks to shipments increase.

Quarter-over-quarter, DRAM bit shipments increased by 5% due to the seasonal effect on mobile demand as server demand stayed strong. The average selling price rose by 1%.

For NAND flash, the bit shipments surged by 19% as the company actively responded to the market trend towards high-density mobile products and expanded the portion of SSD within its portfolio. The average selling price decreased by 10%. In the third quarter, the SSD portion of the total NAND flash revenue grew to mid-20%. In particular, revenue from enterprise SSD more than tripled compared to the last quarter, accounting for mid-20% of the SSD sales.

SK Hynix plans to respond to market changes through the development of new processes as well as stable operation of mass production facilities.

First, the development of 1Ynm DRAM will be completed by the end of the year. The cleanroom expansion of Wuxi FAB is to be completed by the end of this year as planned, so that mass production will begin in the first half of next year.

The company will expand its position in the mobile and enterprise SSD market with 3D NAND products, while planning to complete the development of 96-Layer 3D NAND this year. In addition, it will make sure that the M15 FAB, of which the completion ceremony was held earlier this month, will contribute to the production capacity from the first half of next year.

Lastly, SK Hynix plans to implement investment plans flexibly on a quarterly basis in accordance with market conditions, in preparation for the increase of demand volatility due to changes in the external environment.