Reporting its fourth-quarter results on Thursday, Hynix Semiconductor - the South Korean manufacturer of computer memory chip maker – said that the strong bounce back in chip prices helped the company swing to net profit during the quarter.

Reversing from a 1.69 trillion won net loss during the same quarter a year earlier, Hynix – the world’s second-rank computer memory chip maker by revenue after Samsung Electronics - posted a 657 billion won net profit; with its sales figures showing a whopping 85 percent increase - from 1.51 trillion won to 2.80 trillion won.

Hynix further revealed that said the average selling price of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips – which are one of the main components in personal computers – increased 26 percent in the fourth quarter.

Hynix’s quarterly results are the latest indication that the semiconductor industry is on its way to recovery after having witnessed a slump for nearly two years. Optimistic about the future, the executives at Hynix gave an upbeat outlook for this year, largely due to a notable increase in chip demand and limited supply.

Projecting that the industry’s DRAM bit growth, which measures the volume growth, for the industry will likely be 40-50 percent this year; and its NAND chips bit growth will be 80-90 percent, Hynix said that the company would most probably surpass these estimated growth levels.