Hynix posts record operating profit in third quarter

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix on Tuesday posted a record operating profit in the third quarter to September, boosted by strong demand from phone manufacturers and higher chip prices.

The world's second-largest memory chipmaker after Samsung Electronics said operating profit for July-September surged to 1.16 trillion won ($1.09 billion), a reverse from a 24 billion won deficit a year earlier.

Sales jumped 68.5 percent on-year to a record 4.08 trillion won on the back of sales of NAND flash memory chips, which store data in smartphones and digital cameras.

Rising prices for higher dynamic random access memory chips, or DRAM, also fuelled profits.

The average DRAM price was five percent higher than the previous quarter, offsetting a two-percent slide in shipments of the device following a September fire at the company's main plant in Wuxi in China's Jiangsu Province.

The chipmaker has yet to fully restart operations at the facility, whose output accounts for roughly 15 percent of global computer memory chips.

© 2013 AFP