SEOUL, KOREA - SK Hynix will invest more than 1 trillion won in research and development this year. This is almost 10 percent of its sales revenue last year. A high-ranking SK Hynix official said on May 22, "Although this year's plants and equipment investment will decline slightly from last year's, R&D investment will be in excess of 1 trillion won."

 

 

In 2010, the semiconductor maker spent 790.3 billion won in R&D, followed by 833.8 billion won in 2011 and 938.3 billion won in 2012. The percentage of R&D expenditure in the total sales revenue has also increased to 9.2 percent last year from 6.5 percent in 2010.

 

In contrast, its investment in plants and equipment will shrink largely because of an absence of high-profile acquisitions like Link_A_Media Devices Corp., a California-based storage solution company, that it took over at the cost of 344 billion won. Taken together, the company spent 4.2 trillion won in plants and equipment investment last year. This year, SK Hynix will spend about 3 trillion won.