President Park Sung-wook of SK Hynix Semiconductor Co.

President Park Geun-hye presents the $15 Billion Export Tower Prize to President Park Sung-wook of SK Hynix at the 52nd Trade Day ceremony held on Dec. 7 at Coex in Seoul.

SK Hynix, set up in 1983 is a core player in the IT industry, produces and markets semiconductor chips at home and around the world. 

The integrated chip company turns out D-ram and Nand flash and other system chips such as CIS, which go into mobiles and computers, and other IT equipment.

Since 1984, when the company produced its first 16KB S-ram chips, it produced a string of new products ranging from the smallest chips produced in the world, chips with the fastest conductivity, and the chips used in the lowest pressure, all revolutionary in the process of becoming the second largest memory chip producer in the world.

The chip maker predicted that the emergence of digital equipment would usher in a new era for the industry, expanding demand for different kinds of chips, so the company took action to be ready.  

The results are that the company’s annual sales last year came to 17.12 trillion won and operating profit to 5.1 trillion won, up 21 percent and 51 percent year-over-year respectively, the largest increases in those two accounts in SK Hynix’s history.

The chip company now operates four plants; one in Incheon, Gyeonggi Province; one in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province; another in Wusa, China; and also a plant in Chungqing, China. 

The company also has overseas marketing subsidiaries in 10 foreign countries including China, the U.S., Britain, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Taiwan.

The emerging market counties led by China consume around 63 percent of total chips produced around the world, with demand for chips rising due to the dominance of electronics companies ins China and India. Chip demand in advanced regions like North America and Europe continues to recover from sudden dips in demand in 2012, but the emerging nations continue to lead in global chip consumption in the world, as well as electronic products, with personal income in those countries rising in recent years.

Under such global conditions, SK Hynix has been able to expand its chip exports 33.8 percent YoY thus far this year up to the third quarter at $16.8 billion. ‘The global market for chips expanded 8 percent last year with that for memory chips rising 17 percent valued at $80 billion.

The chip company has been able to expand its sales this year securing the IT companies as its main customers to continue to rank the 2nd in the memory chip production in the global chip industry. The memory chip business is one of the three major income sources for SK Group has been doing more than its share for the development of the national economy.

The company plans to diversify its business areas from chip production to the system semiconductor chip production in cooperation with SK Telecom to be an integrated semiconductor company.

The company also has secured a base to move into the mobile area in operation also in cooperation with SK Telecom to cope with the fast moving market conditions.

The chip company was able to post such record sales and operating profit due to the synergy from cooperative ties with its affiliates, namely SK Telecom rising to rank the 4th in the global chip industry from the 8th in 2011 to tell the world where Korea stands in terms of global business reach.

A photo of some of the electronic equipment which need semiconductor chips as their major components.(Photos:SK Hynix)