Kospi Slides Again After Chip Rout Over China Memory Rival

South Korea’s benchmark Kospi fell 5.46% on Tuesday to 6,035.35 as chip heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK hynix tumbled on worries about competition from China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), Yonhap News Agency reported.

SK hynix plunged 10.09% to 1.44 million won and Samsung Electronics dropped 7.39% to 232,000 won. The Korea Exchange activated a sell-side sidecar after the index fell more than 5% for over a minute, and foreign investors sold a net 4.51 trillion won ($3.35 billion) of Seoul-listed stocks.

Kospi Slides

The selling was sparked by CXMT’s plan to launch a DDR5 server memory module using a more compact 4F2 cell design by year-end, about two years ahead of Samsung’s reported timeline, according to Technology.org. Analysts also cited renewed concerns over AI spending and weak US chip stocks. Samsung and SK hynix together make up about half of the Kospi.

The pressure continued on Wednesday. The Kospi closed down 0.44% at 6,008.82, its sixth straight session of losses, after rising about 2.6% earlier in the day, TradingKey reported.

Sources: Yonhap via CDM; Technology.org; Seoul Economic Daily; TradingKey.

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