Semiconductor company SK Hynix posts Q4 profit swing on strong chip demand

South Korea's SK Hynix reported Wednesday a fourth-quarter net profit of 164 billion won ($151 million) as growing sales of mobile devices in emerging markets fanned demand for its memory chips.

It was the second consecutive quarter of positive news from the maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and NAND flash memory chips which had posted a net loss of 240 billion won in the same period last year.

Operating profit stood at 55 billion won for October to December, compared to a loss of 106 billion won a year ago.

Sales amounted to 2.7 trillion won, up 6.0 percent from a year ago and 12 percent from the previous quarter.

The world's second-biggest memory chipmaker after Samsung Electronics reported its first profitable quarter in more than a year in the third quarter of last year, thanks to gains in foreign currency transactions.

"(DRAM) shipments greatly increased due to strong demand for chips for mobile devices and computer servers and solid sales of low-end tablet PCs in emerging markets," SK Hynix said in a statement.

DRAM is a key component of computers and many other electronic gadgets including smartphones and tablet PCs.

Sales of NAND flash memory chips were also boosted by rapid growth in the Chinese smartphone market and a series of new phones and tablet PCs rolled out by its client firms eyeing the year-end shopping season, it said.

SK Hynix, which became part of the SK Group in March, has seen its business boosted by growth of its main clients in China such as electronics giants Huawei and Lenovo.

Fourth-quarter shipments for DRAM chips rose by 28 percent from the previous quarter and NAND flash by 19 percent during the same period.

The company said the growing popularity of smartphones and tablet PCs in emerging markets would continue to bolster demand for its mobile memory chips throughout this year.