{"id":148011,"date":"2026-09-09T02:38:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T02:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/148011\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T02:38:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T02:38:37","slug":"kioxia-dismisses-sk-hynix-tie-up-vows-to-ease-chip-price-rises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/148011\/","title":{"rendered":"Kioxia dismisses SK Hynix tie-up, vows to ease chip price rises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Closer links with the South Korean chipmaker will run into antitrust hurdles, says CEO<\/p>\n

Published Wed, Sep 9, 2026 \u00b7 10:02 AM<\/p>\n

[TOKYO] Kioxia\u2019s top executive brushed aside the likelihood of deeper ties with rival and stakeholder SK Hynix, while pledging to keep surging memory prices at bay to avoid denting long-term artificial intelligence demand.<\/p>\n

Makers of memory chips are embarking on costly production capacity increases to meet soaring orders from AI service providers that are fuelling double- or even triple-digit price rises.<\/p>\n

Investors including the chairman of SK Hynix\u2019s parent SK have said manufacturing partnerships may help lower the risk of huge capital commitments needed.<\/p>\n

But oft-floated closer ties with SK Hynix would run into antitrust hurdles and be difficult to square with Kioxia\u2019s jointly-owned manufacturing facilities with Sandisk, according to Kioxia chief executive officer Hiroo Ota.<\/p>\n

Kioxia would need to find other ways to restrain runaway memory prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrices have already risen enough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Asahi newspaper earlier in September, SK chairman Chey Tae-won listed a manufacturing tie-up between Kioxia and SK Hynix as an option.<\/p>\n

An SK Hynix representative said Chey was speaking in general terms, and that no discussions are ongoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t just say, \u2018Well then, let\u2019s make it three companies,\u2019\u201d Ota said of a hypothetical Kioxia-SK Hynix-Sandisk manufacturing tie-up in an interview with Bloomberg News.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO<\/p>\n

\"FuriosaAI<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no idea what prompted (Chey) to say what he did.\u201d The Korean and Japanese chipmakers are not in talks about joint production, he said.<\/p>\n

Kioxia, which specialises in Nand flash memory chips \u2013 used for high-capacity mass data storage \u2013 has in 2026 taken centre stage in a global AI investment rush<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s biggest companies are hurrying to secure supplies of advanced chips from Kioxia and bigger rivals Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology for their AI platforms and are offering lucrative multi-year contracts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chronic shortages of an array of memory chips<\/a> have spurred Kioxia and Sandisk to together plan more than 5 trillion yen (US$33 billion) in spending to expand production capacity at their jointly-owned facilities in northern and central Japan.<\/p>\n

SK Hynix plans a 54 trillion won (US$40 billion) expansion of its chipmaking facilities at home in South Korea and is also building an advanced memory packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speculation of closer ties between SK Hynix and Kioxia is on the rise<\/a> because the two manufacturers are working together to develop non-volatile magnetic memory, while Kioxia sources DRAM used in some of its solid-state drives from SK Hynix.<\/p>\n

SK Hynix also owns bonds that can be converted into a lead 14.19 per cent stake in Kioxia<\/a>. That is as Sandisk works with SK Hynix on high-bandwidth flash memory.<\/p>\n

The former memory chip operation of Toshiba is also navigating rising investor hopes that the current shortages \u2013 expected to last years while plants in the pipeline come online \u2013 mean continued leaps in chip prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kioxia\u2019s average Nand price rose 70 per cent in the June quarter compared with the prior three-month period, when prices more than doubled. Analysts on average expect the company\u2019s operating profit to climb more than nine times in the year to March.<\/p>\n

\u2018Even hyperscalers have limited budgets\u2019<\/p>\n

But Ota, who took Kioxia\u2019s helm in April, said he has instructed his sales teams not to push for substantially higher prices from data centre operators, out of fear of damaging investment appetite in the AI sector.<\/p>\n

Ota did not rule out price hikes in future, but said Kioxia\u2019s priority for now was on keeping chip prices at their current high levels, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would end up hurting our own market and growth if we pushed prices up too much,\u201d Ota said. Another 70 per cent quarter-on-quarter increase in prices seems unlikely, he said. \u201cEven hyperscalers have limited budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Climbing prices have buoyed shares of Kioxia, which are up 18 times from a year ago.<\/p>\n

The company in June briefly topped SoftBank Group and Toyota Motor to become Japan\u2019s most valuable company.<\/p>\n

Kioxia\u2019s stock has lost ground since then, however, on concerns about overcapacity, rising debt levels and fierce competition in the AI sector.<\/p>\n

Demand from the world\u2019s biggest tech providers for Nand chips remains strong as some seek contracts that extend to 2030, Ota said. Kioxia is on the cusp of achieving its goal to have 50 per cent of its shipment volume covered by long-term agreements, he said.<\/p>\n

Kioxia has been focusing its resources on the high-margin AI data centre business as Chinese upstart Yangtze Memory Technologies is gaining market share in cheaper flash memory for consumer electronics.<\/p>\n

The Japanese company would not chase market share \u201cfor the sake of market share\u201d, but would instead strive to provide the technology that companies will seek out first, Ota said.<\/p>\n

In July, the Tokyo-based company began shipments of its latest high-density 3D flash memory<\/a> \u2013 332-layer 10th-generation chips boasting higher transmission speeds and efficiency.<\/p>\n

Kioxia is also developing chips that use metal oxide materials in place of silicon with Taiwan\u2019s Nanya Technology, with the goal of supplying an alternative to conventional DRAM.<\/p>\n

The partnership is now limited to research and development, but the two companies will consider \u201cvarious options\u201d when the efforts result in a viable commercial product, Ota said. BLOOMBERG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Closer links with the South Korean chipmaker will run into antitrust hurdles, says CEO Published Wed, Sep 9,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1591,1136,241,240,275],"class_list":["post-148011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sk","tag-antitrust","tag-semiconductors","tag-sk","tag-sk-group","tag-sk-hynix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}