Chipmakers Samsung and SK Hynix soar nearly 30% as Amazon sparks relief rally Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock
Samsung Electronics (KRX:005930, LSE:BC94) and SK Hynix surged by almost 30% on Friday as strong results from Amazon and Microsoft were the catalyst for investors to rush back into semiconductor shares.
Samsung jumped 28% to ₩265,000, while memory-chip rival SK Hynix climbed 30% to ₩1.7 million. The gains helped South Korea’s KOSPI index rise as much as 17%, with Taiwan’s market up more than 7% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining over 5%.
The rebound followed a punishing sell-off in Asian technology stocks and was fuelled by a strong rebound on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.8% and the S&P 500 added 1.7%.
Amazon shares climbed more than 9.5% in after-hours trading after second-quarter revenue beat forecasts, helped by accelerating revenue growth in its web services division to the fastest since 2021, Management also raised the 2026 capital expenditure projection from $200 billion to $220 billion.
Apple shares fell 6.3% in afterhours trading as it issued a disappointing sales growth outlook.
Earlier, Microsoft had been a key part of driving the Wall Street rebound as its shares recorded their largest ever single-day increase in market value, lifting sentiment across the broader market. The company reported strong quarterly results, driven by accelerating Azure cloud growth and a sharp increase in Copilot adoption.
Investors took the Microsoft and Amazon numbers as evidence that demand for the infrastructure needed to develop and operate AI remained intact.
US chipmakers also advanced after the closing bell, with Micron, AMD and Intel among the risers.
Analyst Patrick Munnelly at Tickmill said battered chipmakers were being “aggressively bought” as confidence in AI-related demand returned.
However, he cautioned that the rebound was “more repair than reset”. Despite Friday’s rally, the KOSPI remained on course to lose almost 25% in July, which would be its worst month since the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
Munnelly said the scale of the rebound suggested aggressive short-covering in a deeply oversold market rather than a full restoration of confidence.