South Korean chipmaker SK hynix Inc. said Tuesday its second-quarter net profit shot up nearly ninefold, helped by a strong average sales price of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and NAND chips.

The record-breaking net profit came to 2.46 trillion won (US$2.2 billion), soaring from 286 billion won a year earlier, the company said.

Operating profit also advanced 573.7 percent over the cited period to reach a record 3.05 trillion won.

SK hynix said the performance is attributable to the favorable market conditions coupled with the rising price of chips.

The company said its shipment and average sales price of DRAM chips advanced 3 percent and 11 percent, respectively, from the previous quarter on the back of expanded sales of server DRAM products.

While the shipment of NAND flash edged down 6 percent on-quarter on slowed demand of smartphones, SK hynix said the average sales price still moved up 8 percent over the cited period.

The company said it expects to rake in strong earnings in the second half of 2017 on the back of server DRAM products and the release of new smartphones.

SK hynix, meanwhile, said it plans to expand the production of DRAM and NAND flash this year to meet the rising global demand. The chipmaker will bolster 3D manufacturing, expecting greater demand for high memory storage to power multi-functional smartphones.

The company will expand facility in both DRAM and flash by the end of the year and also plans to speed up construction of new facilities in Wuxi, China, and Cheongju in Korea to have them completed by the fourth quarter of 2018 instead of the original plan of the first quarter in 2019.

It plans to expand the mass production of the high-end mobile LPDDR4X and also start mass producing 1Xnm DRAM in the second half as planned. It will also begin manufacturing 3D NAND flash in full scale from the new M14 fab and supply mobile solutions and client solid state drives (cSSDs) in 72-layer 3D NAND by the end of the year, followed by enterprise solid state drives (eSSDs) next year.