Seagate's sharp decline affects Taiwanese memory stocks! Samsung's former DS president: Chips may start to decline in the second half of next year

Seagate’s slow capacity expansion led to a dramatic stock crash, dragging down Taiwan’s memory-related stock sector as well. A former president of Samsung’s DS also warned that, as China’s capacity rapidly expands and the returns on AI investments fall short of expectations, the prices of memory chips in the second half of next year may face a downside risk.

Capacity can’t keep up with demand—Seagate’s plunge hits memory stocks
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The stock price of Seagate (Seagate), a global hard drive and memory manufacturer, plunged during U.S. stock trading early this morning, closing down more than 6%. The main reason behind the sell-off was that Seagate CEO Dave Mosley disclosed that adding production equipment or expanding factory space to manufacture more chips would take too long.

He stressed that even if the company ultimately secures more capacity, this decision would still slow the growth rate of the technology. These remarks sparked concerns among market investors, and the outside world began to question whether the supply chain can meet the massive demand driven by AI build-outs.

Seagate’s peer stocks were also dumped. Including Micron (Micron), SanDisk (SanDisk), and Western Digital (Western Digital), their stock prices were all affected, each falling by about 5% at the close.



Image source: Google Finance Seagate’s stock price plunged during U.S. trading early this morning, closing down more than 6%.

### Seagate’s stock plunge hits Taiwan stocks

When Taiwan stocks opened this morning, memory-sector stocks were also affected. Memory controller chip maker Phison (8299) plunged nearly 10%, with the share price dropping to 2,465 yuan; Nanya Technology (2408) fell more than 9% to 277.5 yuan; Winbond Electronics (2344) also dropped nearly 9%, and trading volume surged to more than 12.7 hundred thousand shares.

Other stocks including Transcend (2451), Apacer (8271), Tyan Zhen (4967) and ADATA (3260) also saw declines of roughly 3% to 5% each, and the overall sector performance showed a severely weak, downward trend.



Image source: CMoney Seagate’s stock plunge hits Taiwan’s memory sector

Former Samsung executive warns: memory chip prices will start to fall next year
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The global memory market’s supply-and-demand structure has hidden variables. According to a report by South Korean media outlet “Seoul Economic Daily,” Kyung Kye-hyun (Kyung Kye-hyun), former president of Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor division, said at the 285th forum of the Korea Academy of Engineering (NAEK) in Seoul that Chinese companies are currently expanding memory capacity at an extremely aggressive pace.

He cited data from multiple international market research firms predicting that, as global memory capacity expands rapidly, market supply will increase noticeably as early as the second half of next year, causing memory chip prices to begin reversing downward; at the latest, the effects of the price decline will fully become apparent by the first half of 2028.

Kyung Kye-hyun also pointed out that if large technology companies’ returns on investment in capital expenditure do not meet expectations, these companies are highly likely to cut back the scale of their investments in the AI field. At that time, the pressure facing the overall market will be not only downward pressure on prices, but even the risk that memory demand itself could shrink after 2028.

In addition, Kyung Kye-hyun said directly that South Korea’s semiconductor industry has serious structural problems.

Although South Korea holds as much as 70% of the global DRAM market share, its global market share in chip design (Fabless) is only about 1.5%. Compared with Taiwan, which has a complete supply chain, South Korea lacks a comprehensive semiconductor ecosystem that includes chip design.

Therefore, he suggested that South Korea must move toward becoming a deep tech manufacturing country, develop system semiconductors and autonomous AI technologies, and effectively integrate AI into the advantages of its existing manufacturing industry.

Will the memory super cycle have peaked? Still to be observed
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The current memory market super cycle is largely built on the premise that technology giants continue expanding their capital expenditures.

In recent months, demand for AI data center construction has driven large technology companies to continuously increase purchases of graphics processing units (GPU), high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and high-capacity DRAM. This has made memory stocks one of the favorite investment targets among global investors.

However, from Seagate’s stock plunge triggered by delays in capacity expansion to Kyung Kye-hyun’s warning, these all indicate that the broader supply chain may face correction pressure beneath the surface. Whether this AI-driven memory investment frenzy is about to end, or instead enters another phase of industrial restructuring, still needs to be closely watched by the market going forward.

Further reading:
DDR5 32G soars past 10,000 won! AI demand concentrates on memory, Phison: first big industry cycle in 25 years

AI raiding memory leads to a shortage wave burning up gaming consoles! Reports say PS6 and the new Xbox may be delayed