SK hynix to focus on improving NAND biz profitability

SK hynix Inc. assured its stockholders that it will focus on improving the profitability of its NAND business and become the global industry leader.

According to CEO Lee Seok-hee, with SK hynix's strength being in mobile NAND, and Intel's forte in the enterprise SSD sector, their acquisition maximizes the synergy.

Lee revealed that they are thinking of building R&D infrastructure across various regions including the US and Europe, and will also find promising companies in artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous driving, and 5G to make investments.

Last October, SK hynix inked a deal to buy Intel's non-volatile memory unit for US$9 billion, which includes the latter's solid-state drive (SSD) business and a NAND flash chip plant in Dalian, China.

As of the fourth quarter of 2020, SK hynix ranked fourth in the NAND market with a revenue share of 11.6 percent, while Intel took the sixth spot with 8.9 percent.

The acquisition of Intel's NAND unit makes SK hynix the world's second-largest NAND supplier.

Samsung Electronics Co. topped the ranking with 32.9 percent, followed by Kioxia with 19.5 percent.

SK hynix is also the world's No. 2 DRAM maker.