Samsung Electronics and SK hynix benefited from the Chinese 'old-for-new' (以舊換新) policy last year, recording significant growth in both sales and operating profit.
According to a business report disclosed by Samsung Electronics on the 12th, the export amount to China last year was 64.9 trillion won, a 53.9% increase (about 22.7 trillion won) compared to the previous year (42.2 trillion won).
While the business report does not separately categorize sales by region for the device experience (DX) sector, which covers mobile and home appliances, and the device solution (DS) sector, which handles semiconductors, it is known that most of the exported products to China are semiconductors. In terms of export value alone, exports to China surpassed those to the United States (61.4 trillion won) during the same period.
The performance of the Chinese sales and production subsidiaries also improved. According to the audit report, last year's sales of the NAND flash production subsidiary 'Samsung China Semiconductor' (SCS) in Xi'an were 11.2 trillion won, with an operating profit of 1.2 trillion won.
In comparison to the 2023 performance (8.7 trillion won in sales and 878 billion won in operating profit), this represents a significant improvement. Additionally, the sales subsidiary 'Shanghai Samsung Semiconductor' (SSS) reported sales of 30.1 trillion won last year, nearly doubling the previous year's figure (15.6 trillion won).
This growth trend is attributed to the economic stimulus measures in China. Last year, China released 150 billion yuan (about 30 trillion won) for the old-for-new policy, which helped revive the demand for mobile products and increased semiconductor demand.
The semiconductors that Samsung Electronics sells and exports to China include mobile products such as DRAM, NAND flash, image sensors, and display driver integrated circuits (DDI), as well as some high-bandwidth memory like HBM2 and HBM2E.
Not only Samsung Electronics but also SK hynix benefited from this. SK hynix operates one of the largest DRAM production bases in Wuxi, and it has packaging plants in Chongqing and a subsidiary, Solidigm, in Dalian.
According to the company's audit report, the semiconductor production subsidiary 'SK hynix Semiconductor China' (Wuxi plant) achieved sales of 5.6 trillion won and operating profit of 598 billion won last year, earning about 745 billion won more compared to the 1.5 trillion won net loss in 2023.
Additionally, the sales subsidiary 'SK hynix (Wuxi) Semiconductor Sales,' which handles both DRAM and NAND in China, reported sales and net profit of 13.1 trillion won and 1.4 trillion won respectively last year, reflecting increases of 64.3% and 65.4% compared to the previous year.
In the case of SK hynix, it is reported that the company focuses on selling products such as HBM for servers and AI to the United States, where big tech companies are concentrated, while primarily selling mobile products like LPDDR and NAND in China.