infoTECH Feature

April 26, 2012

Korean Tech Companies Like Hynix Continue to Flounder

Hynix, a South Korean memory chip manufacturer, reported a loss for the third consecutive quarter.

The company is suffering from a combination of maladies with which Korean and Japanese technology manufacturers are becoming reluctantly familiar – stagnating demand and scary competition from Chinese companies.

Hynix got stuck with a net loss of $271 billion won between January and March, 2012. Making it especially salty is the memory of a $274 billion gain during the same period last year.

Despite a minor shot in the arm after the competing Japanese Elpida Memory Inc. bellied up in February, demand on the PC memory market continues to resemble an exhausted sloth at the end of a hard day of not doing anything.

Admirably, Hynix refuses to give up the ghost just yet.

"Ultrabook" itself is a new term, invented by Hynix's fellow chipmaker Intel (News - Alert). The California-based company put together a $300 million "Ultrabook fund" for companies anywhere in the world that want to develop small, lightweight laptop computers that run Windows specs. Ideally, Ultrabook represents the great hope for Windows-based portables to compete with Apple (News - Alert). The problem is that, right now, the things are just too darn expensive for people to justify purchasing compared similar Apple alternatives like the Macbook Air.

If Ultrabooks can figure out how to cut prices significantly enough and soon enough to provide realistic competition to Apple products, suffering PC memory companies like Hynix may still have a chance.

Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors promise an unprecedented level of performance and graphics to Windows systems along with a drastic reduction in power usage in time for this coming school year. As Intel announces their "third generation" processors, you can imagine that CEOs of chipmaker companies like Hynix are biting their fingernails and hoping that Intel's new processors are not just filing their fingernails and spouting a bunch of macho talk.




Edited by Carrie Schmelkin
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