Hyundai wins $30 in chip panel deals

Hyundai wins $30 in chip panel deals

SEOUL (AfP): South Korea's leading chip maker Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. Ltd., said Monday that it had secured about US$30 billion in overseas orders for microchips and flat panel displays.

Hyundai said in a statement it would export Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chips worth $22 billion to four major international firms in deals spread over the next five years.

The four firms include such giants as International Businesss Machines Corp. (IBM), Compaq Computer Corp. and Gateway Inc., it said.

"The fourth DRAM chip importer asked us not to reveal its name," a Hyundai spokesman told AFP.

The company also said it had recently secured deals to supply Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) units worth eight billion dollars to four other foreign firms over five years from 2000.

Hyundai is also negotiating similar deals for DRAM exports worth $15 billion to other firms, he said, but declined to reveal their names.

Kim Yong-Hwan, president of Hyundai Electronics, told reporters the deals were in their final stages and that he expected them to be finalized by early December.

He added that the amount of DRAM chips to be exported in the new deals far exceeded the previous combined exports of Hyundai Electronics and LG Semicon Co., which merged earlier this year.

"The five-year DRAM export contracts mean a lot (to Hyundai Electronics) in that the big chip importers see prospects for the integrated electronics firm as very bright," Kim said.

Hyundai Electronics said it had a 20.8 percent stake in the global market as of the end of last year. It says it is the nation's number one DRAM maker in terms of chip-production capacity.

Hyundai plans to expand its annual TFT-LCD production capability from 500,000 units to 1.8 million units in 2000, and three million units in 2001, the statement said.

The firm posted a net loss of 125 billion won ($104 million) for the six months to June.

But Hyundai said in the statement that it expects to post a "considerable amount" of net profit for this year and a "large- scale" net profit for next year on the back of synergy from its merger with the former LG Semicon Co.

The South Korean electronics giant has pledged to cut the debt-to-equity ratio of its integrated semiconductor unit to 200 percent by the end of the year from 350 percent.