The global price of dynamic random access memory chips surged in October from a month earlier, data showed Tuesday, boding well for South Korea's leading chipmakers.
According to the data compiled by market tracker DRAMeXchange, the average contract price of the DDR3 4GB, mostly used for PCs, rose 25.3 percent on-month to US$1.88 in October, marking the highest gain since March of 2013 when the prices advanced 18.52 percent on-month.
The DRAM prices have risen sharply since July this year advancing 7.2 percent on-month in July, 2.99 percent in August and 8.7 percent in September, the data showed.
The advance in DRAM prices is expected to help South Korea's major chipmakers -- Samsung Electronics Co. and SK hynix Inc. -- log sound business results from their chip-making businesses during the fourth quarter of the year.
Samsung accounted for 47.4 percent of the global DRAM market in the second quarter of the year, while SK hynix took up 26.5 percent, boasting a combined share of a whopping 73.9 percent.
Samsung logged an operating income of 3.37 trillion won ($2.94 billion) from its chipmaking business during the third quarter of the year, the highest in an almost one year. SK hynix also saw its chipmaking unit post an operating income of 726 billion won in the July-September period, up 60 percent from a month earlier. (Yonhap)
