South Korea’s SK hynix Inc. posted its first loss in almost 10 years in the fourth quarter last year due to a sharp drop in memory chip prices as demand slowed in the smartphone and electronics markets.

The world’s second-largest memory chip maker Wednesday reported an operating loss of 1.7 trillion won ($1.37 billion) for the October-December period versus a profit of 4.22 trillion won a year earlier. It was the chipmaker’s first quarterly operating loss since the third quarter of 2012.

Sales dropped 37.8 percent to 7.7 trillion won during the three-month period and net loss reached 3.52 trillion won, compared with a profit of 3.32 trillion won a year ago.

For all of 2022, SK hynix logged an operating profit of 7 trillion won, down 43.5 percent on year. Sales was 44.65 trillion won, up 3.8 percent from a year earlier, with a net profit of 2.44 trillion won, down 74.6 percent.

SK hynix was hit hard by the sluggish demand in the semiconductor industry compared with Samsung Electronics, whose business is relatively diversified. Memory chip business accounts for 90 percent of SK hynix’ total sales.

Analysts forecast that SK hynix could lose several trillion won this year as the slump in the memory chip market is expected to continue until the first half of this year.

Earlier, SK hynix said it will slash its investment by more than half this year from last year’s 19 trillion won.

By Pulse

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