Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Investors continued to dump chipmaker stocks on Wednesday following disappointing results from SK Hynix, sending Asian markets lower amid ongoing fears about the AI boom’s sustainability.
The world’s second-largest memory-chip maker reported a 557 per cent surge in operating profit to a record Won60.5tn ($42bn) in the three months to 30 June compared with the same period last year.
That missed a forecast of Won64tn by LSEG SmartEstimate, while sales also fell short of analyst estimates despite jumping 257 per cent to Won79.3tn ($50.7bn).
Shares in SK Hynix fell more than 16 per cent, dragging Seoul’s Kospi index down about 11 per cent and compounding Tuesday’s double-digit decline amid a wider AI-related sell-off.
Samsung Electronics, SK’s larger rival, fell almost 12 per cent.
“The semiconductor market has run too fast too far,” said Song Zhe at BNP Paribas Asset Management. “People just blindly believed the memory market would go up forever.”
Song said investors were further rattled by a Reuters report on Tuesday suggesting China would begin mass-producing its own deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines needed for advanced chipmaking.
Kim Young-geon, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities in Seoul, cut SK Hynix’s target price and said investors were now concerned about China making lithography equipment. “The focus should now shift to the sustainability of the industry’s improved profitability.”
Investors said some selling was taking place ahead of market restrictions coming into effect on the Kospi on Friday. South Korean regulators have set a minimum cash requirement to invest in single-stock leveraged exchange traded funds, which they have blamed for much of the volatility.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq was set to open almost 1 per cent lower, while Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 3 per cent in afternoon trading, meaning it has lost more than 15 per cent since its June peak.
AI and semiconductor stocks dropped once again, with component maker Murata Manufacturing, memory-chip maker Kioxia, semiconductor groups Tokyo Electron and Lasertec suffering steep falls.
Despite the declines in the Nikkei, Korea’s stock market has been nearly twice as volatile as Japan’s this year, according to analysts at Eurasia Group.
Blaming the historic rally in Korean stocks, its reliance on a few companies, such as SK Hynix and Samsung, and the impact of leveraged ETFs, they noted that the Kospi had even surpassed bitcoin, the cryptocurrency known for wild swings in pricing, in terms of volatility this year.
SK Hynix stock has now shed more than half its value since its June peak amid growing doubts over the durability of AI spending by America’s biggest tech companies. The shares had risen more than sevenfold over the past year before the recent sell-off.
The earnings miss reflected SK Hynix’s greater exposure to high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI hardware, leaving it less able to benefit from rising prices for conventional memory chips.
Despite robust earnings and higher prices, chipmaker shares have been under pressure as investors fear soaring memory costs could curb demand by prompting customers to cut usage or find cheaper alternatives.
Concerns over potential oversupply have also weighed on sentiment after Korean chipmakers last month unveiled major investment plans. SK Hynix and Samsung plan to build two new chipmaking plants each in South Korea for a combined Won800tn ($530bn), doubling capacity for DRam chips within five years. US rival Micron Technology is also increasing domestic investment to $250bn until 2035.
However, SK Hynix executives said the risk of memory oversupply from capacity expansion remained “limited”, arguing that supply would stay tight for a “considerable” period as customers continued to buy more chips.
They also expected cloud service providers to keep increasing AI spending beyond 2027 and said their long-term supply agreements, which run for about five years, were designed to reduce exposure to memory price volatility.
“We are trying to focus on securing mid-to-long-term business stability by reducing uncertainties stemming from short-term market volatility,” SK vice-president Park Joon-deok said on a call with analysts. “We will try to reduce downside risks while remaining flexible to capture additional demand and growth opportunities while market conditions remain favourable.”
Growing competition from Chinese chipmakers has added to investor anxiety that the industry could repeat its boom-and-bust cycle. Chinese DRam maker CXMT raised $8.5bn in a blockbuster Shanghai listing this week.
However, SK Hynix executives remain optimistic, arguing that AI is reshaping demand in the cyclical memory industry, while longer-term supply agreements are improving earnings visibility.
They recently said the chip shortage could persist beyond 2030 as the company expanded capacity, including a $4bn chip-packaging plant in Indiana. Chair Chey Tae-won has pledged to invest well beyond the $35bn already committed in the US.
