Mr. Lee Sang Sup, Managing Director, SK Hynix Asia
Mr. Sanjay Kaul, Director Sales and Marketing, SK Hynix Asia
EM Media: We would like to start with introducing SK Hynix Company and its presence globally.
Mr. Lee: SK Hynix is a world leader in semiconductors especially in memories. We are leading memory semiconductor manufacturer globally. We are No. 2 in DRAM market and in total semiconductor industry we acquire 3rd position worldwide. SK Hynix Company was founded in the year 1983 and total we have a man-power of over 27,000 peoples overall. We have 3 manufacturing sites in Korea and China and a wide-spread global sales network. Our revenue in last year was KRW 18.8 trillion (about 17 billion dollars). In our total revenue, DRAM contributes over 20%. R&D centers of Hynix are in Italy, US, Taiwan, Japan, and Belarus. 23% of Hynix manpower is engaged in R&D
EM Media: How do you look at growth of memories market in Indian market?
Mr. Lee: The last 3 years were quite profitable for memory market but this year we experienced the growth of DRAM and NAND flash memory declining. The key reason was PC demands have declined and now we are looking at new prominent areas like mobiles phones and data centers. In Indian market we are focusing on mobile phones market and other key areas are set-top boxes and data centers. We are very excited with “Make in India” govt. policy especially in IT industry. This is one of the main reasons we shifted to Noida (NCR) .Also, Delhi-NCR region inhabitants many local mobile manufacturing set-ups like Micromax, LAVA, Intex and Karbonn. SK Hynix already share good business relation with all these companies and expects exponential growth within these companies in near future as we extend our support locally to these customers.
Every application in IT is using memory inside, making India a huge market for memories. Further in Indian market the biggest segment is mobile phones and consumer goods. Few other momentum gaining segments are automation, IoT and Industrial. So the memory demand in India is expected to grow and stabilize.
EM Media: Visualizing market potential and supporting ‘Make in India” do SK Hynix is having any plan to set-up R&D or manufacturing plant here in India?
Mr. Lee: This will be entirely our management decision but at present our focus is on setting-up sales and marketing and technical strength of the company in India. Shortly we will be setting-up a design centre in our new office to provide technical support to our customers.
EM Media: In your views what are the promising verticals driving memory demand in the country?
Mr. Kaul: As per ISA-frost & Sullivan, India Semiconductor TAM during 2015 was estimated to be around USD 3.69Bn and Memory has been one of the major contributors with approx. 18% share. We see immerse growth opportunities from Mobile IT/OA & CE verticals that are forecasted to contribute over 55% of TAM Revenues during 2015.
EM Media: Mobile manufacturing in India is all about “Mobile assembly” in the country, Please comment.
Mr. Kaul: It is true currently almost all Mobile companies barring one MNC company in India are currently engaged in Mobile assembly only. Full-fledged Mobile manufacturing technically and commercially both will take some time to realize .However at recent budget announcement an incentive of 2% was provided for Mobile PCBA manufacturing, even-though that might not be enough for international and Indian companies to invest immediately. However it is a kind of incentive to boost and promote local PCBA manufacturing for Mobile Industry. Also we can see that Indian Govt is very keen to increase this duty differential to amplify Mobile manufacturing locally in coming years. I personally feel, full fledged Mobile phone manufacturing taking shape post 2H 2017 onwards.
EM Media: In there any innovation SK Hynix is coming up for Indian or global market?
Mr. Kaul: This year in terms of DRAM technology, we compete with the best companies. We are already going to produce 20 nano meter DRAM Technology that will add lots of value and competitiveness in the market. In terms of Flash we are already producing 16 Nano Meter and we have plans to move to 14 nano meters and 3D NAND.
EM Media: Please tell us about your investment and chip plants. What makes you to make investment in India?
Mr. Lee: At the moment SK Hynix don’t have plan of chip plants in India. But we consider India will be one of the potential countries, which we make investment in the future. Especially we may explore about R&D center, as India has very strong pool of IT engineers.
EM Media: What do you think about India memory market opportunity?
Mr. Lee: In terms of memory market the major market today is china and America but we are sure that within 3-5 years India will be the biggest potential market worldwide. The reason is based on population of 1.3 billion that is 15% of worldwide population that will fuel the demand of devices and gadgets more than projected. Today India is growing with govt. policies to promote manufacturing we expect a gradual increase in memory demands in different segments. Our company consider Indian market after China the most important one and that’s we shifted our office to NCR. A potential business opportunity in India is a factor we are increasing marketing strength here. Talking about market trends in India, mobile applications are the biggest driving trend of Indian memory market.
Mr. Kaul: We see immense opportunities generating from Mobile, Storage and CE industry in India as market penetration is very low for such segments within India.
EM Media: Which are your distribution partners in India? How is your association with Rabyte India?
Mr. Kaul: We cater are global customers within India directly and for regional customers we have 3 distributors handling India Region: Serial System; WE Components & Rabyte Electronics.
Rabyte has been with us for last 3 years. Rabyte has good Pan India presence and understand India market very well. Their strong FAE& Design capability is the reason we had them on board as it brings lots of value proposition to our existing business. They are able to cater to local customer requests efficiently and offer transitions in both dollar & INR.