SK Hynix boosts investment in new South Korean chip factory

SEOUL (Reuters) - SK Hynix Inc said it would invest 20 trillion won ($17.8 billion) in a new memory chip manufacturing plant opening on Thursday in South Korea, about 29 percent more than originally budgeted.

FILE PHOTO: The logo of SK Hynix is seen at its headquarters in Seongnam, South Korea, April 25, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo

The amount is higher than the 15.5 trillion won investment the company announced in 2015 due to rising equipment costs for its fine technology process used to make smaller chips, the it said. The factory will produce NAND flash chips.

“Timing for equipment installation shall be decided considering market conditions,” SK Hynix said in a statement.

Prices for NAND chips, used for longer-term data storage, more than halved over the past year as supply swamped demand, data from market trackers show.

Those drops are expected to accelerate, while most analysts also predict DRAM prices will begin to decline, analysts say.

A company official said the chipmaker had already spent about 2.2 trillion won on the plant.

Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Stephen Coates

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