SK Hynix jumped 5% in Seoul this morning even though the Korean memory chip manufacturer posted the weakest profit in three years.

SK Hynix’s March quarter revenue fell 17% from the previous quarter to 3.7 trillion won, while operating margin tumbled 43% to 562 billion won. However, this set of numbers is in line with consensus.

Markets were cheered by SK Hynix’s forward guidance today: Hynix expects March quarter’s slump to be temporary.

Hynix’s management now sees at least 15% sequential growth for DRAM in the second quarter and a milder sales price erosion, thanks to stronger seasonality. Meanwhile, it expects at least 30% sequential growth in 3D NAND.

Analysts have been worried memory chip leader Samsung Electronics is engaged in a competitive price war, thereby hurting Hynix. See my April 11 blog “Samsung Killed The New Memory Paradigm, Bernstein Downgrades Hynix“.

Hynix does not seem to be striking back – it is now guiding for a below-industry growth rate while protecting its unit sales prices. Morgan Stanley notes:

The company looks to grow in-line/slightly below market’s bit growth in the low/mid-20% in 2016. Hynix is targeting 21nm mass production for PC DRAM in 2Q16 and mobile LPDDR4 in 2H16, which should drive costs from 2Q16.

[On NAND] The company looks to grow slightly below market’s mid/high-30% in 2016, driven by SSD penetration and higher content-per-box.

Capex for 2015 was ~W6.6tr, and the company guides 2016 capex to be lower than last year’s level (~low W6tr level in our view). Capex should be driven by 3D NAND investments.

Samsung Electronics rose 1.2% on Hynix’s results. SK Hynix also competes with Micron (MU).