Hynix Semiconductor said Thursday that it swung to a secondquarter net loss compared with the same period last year, partly because of costs related to the closure of a U.S. factory. Sales also fell.
Hynix, the world’s No. 2 memory chip maker after Samsung Electronics, lost 707.81 billion won, or $697.11 million, in the three months ending June 30.

The company posted net profit of 213.5 billion won a year earlier. It was the third straight loss for the company, which is based in Icheon, South Korea. Sales during the second quarter declined 5 percent to 1.85 trillion won from the year before.
Hynix faces a difficult second half as slow recovery in dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips, used mainly for personal computers, is still too weak to make up for the steep price falls of 2007.

The picture is bleaker still for NAND flash chips, used in portable gadgets, as Hynix faces massive shipment cuts. Hynix on Thursday slashed its 2008 NAND shipment growth target to 50 percent to 60 percent, from an already revised 90 percent to 100 percent. ‘‘The overall chip industry is undergoing a recovery, but the pace is much slower than people had expected,’’ said John Park, an analyst at Daishin Securities. Analysts predicted the memory slump could drag on into 2009. ‘‘Toward the year-end, we expect better supply-demand balance for both DRAM and NAND,’’ said O.C. Kwon, Hynix’s senior vice president of strategic planning.

Samsung posted a lower-than-expected quarterly net profit last week, also due to the weak memory chip market. Kwon told analysts on a conference call that the company had a non-operating expense of about 360 billion won during the quarter related to the closure of its U.S. chip plant.

Hynix announced last week that it would shutter its facility in Eugene, Oregon, amid migration to more advanced technology and industry price declines. It is considering selling the facility’s equipment, building and land.

‘‘If we can sell those assets at a higher price later, hopefully, maybe we can record another capital gain,’’ Kwon said.
Hynix’s big loss reflected the burden of servicing foreign-currency debt, as the won’s value against the dollar at the end of the second quarter was 12 percent lower than a year ago.

‘‘Hynix should turn to an operating profit in the third and fourth quarters, but it would be difficult to expect a sharp growth in earnings momentum,’’ said Park Hyun, an analyst at Prudential Investment and Securities.

Makers of DRAM chips are mired in an 18-month market slump in which some key product prices have fallen more than 90 percent. While the average contract price of DRAM chips has risen about 30 percent this year, the scale of earlier price drops has made a financial recovery difficult. Analysts still expect the strongly cyclical memory market to recover eventually.

Hynix said it expected average prices of DRAM chips to remain nearly flat in the third quarter after rising 9 percent in the second, while shipment growth should be above 20 percent. Average prices of NAND chips are seen as falling by a single digit percentage point while shipments should be down around 10 percent, the company said.