( dpa ) - South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor, the world's second-largest maker of memory chips, reported its first quarterly loss in more than 4 years on Friday on falling chip prices.
In the three months ending December 31, Hynix posted a 465 billion won (492.8 million dollars) net loss, compared with a record 1 trillion won profit a year ago in the same period.
Fourth-quarter sales were 1.85 trillion won, a 29 per cent decrease from last year's 2.61 trillion, on sharp pirce drops in both dynamic random access memory DRAM, used mainly in personal computers, and NAND flash chips used in digital cameras.
The loss was Hynix's first since the second quarter of 2003.
For all of 2007, net profit fell to 361 billion won, compared with 2 trillion won a year earlier. The difference between the operating loss and the net loss was the income tax expense of 108 billion won, Hynix said.
Full-year sales rose 12 per cent to 8.6 trillion won.
For 2008 the company forecast another year of losses, with prices of DRAM chips falling 35 to 40 per cent on the year and NAND prices sinking 45 to 50 per cent. The drops would be smaller than in 2007, Hynix said.