An Apple memory chip warning sent markets across Asia sharply lower on Friday, with South Korea’s Kospi bearing the brunt of a sell-off that swept through semiconductor shares from Seoul to Tokyo and Taipei.
The Kospi fell 6.9 per cent to 8,309.6 points, triggering a 20-minute circuit-breaker halt for the third time this week and the fifth time in the year to date. The move wiped out Thursday’s gains, which had followed Micron’s profit surge.
Apple’s Memory Chip Warning and the Price Hikes Behind It
Apple said on Thursday that the consumer technology industry faces an ‘unprecedented challenge’ as memory prices rise faster than it can absorb. The company raised MacBook and iPad prices by 20 per cent worldwide, one of the broadest price increases in its history, citing shortages driven by surging demand from AI data centres.
Specific model increases published by BeinCrypto show the Mac Studio M3 Ultra climbing from $3,999 to $5,299, a $1,300 increase. The MacBook Pro rose $300 to $1,999 and the iPad Pro increased $200 to $1,199. The MacBook Air also increased by $200 to $1,299. iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch pricing was left unchanged.
Apple said: ‘The rapid expansion of AI data centres has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions.’
Chief executive Tim Cook had warned investors only last week that price increases would be ‘unavoidable’ because of the ‘unsustainable’ cost of both memory and storage. Apple shares closed 6.1 per cent lower on Thursday at $271.1 (£205.4) per share.
Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said: ‘With valuations so stretched, even a slight turn in sentiment shows up in big moves. Right now, investors are highly sensitive to worries about how long the voracious demand for chips to power the AI revolution will last. The triggers setting off this latest wave of selling are rate hike fright and supply chain fears. The fight for memory chips, which has pushed up prices to eye-watering levels, is showing up in sharp increases for end-users… There’s a feeling that there’s only so long this can go on for.’
Streeter added that investors remain ‘unconvinced that consumers will keep paying higher prices’ regardless of the brand’s standing.
KOSPI Circuit Breaker: How the Sell-Off Spread
The Kospi’s plunge was amplified by its concentration in semiconductor stocks. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for approximately 40 per cent of the index’s weighting, according to CryptoBriefing. TradingKey puts the pair’s combined share of total market capitalisation at approximately half, a figure that reflects a slightly different metric but points to the same extreme sector concentration.
SK Hynix plunged 9.1 per cent to 2,651,000 KRW (£1,305.6), while Samsung Electronics tumbled 6.2 per cent. The Korea Times reported the domestic sell-off tracked Wall Street’s losses, where semiconductor shares posted their largest single-day percentage drop since March 2020. A hotter-than-expected US jobs report for May added to fears of a hawkish Federal Reserve policy pivot.
The Korea Exchange’s Level 1 circuit breaker activates when the Kospi falls more than 8 per cent from the previous day’s close, automatically halting trading for 20 minutes, the Korea Times reported.
The Chosun Ilbo reported that Samsung fell below the 300,000 Korean won level during a separate earlier session this week, while SK Hynix dropped to approximately 1,900,000 Korean won in the same period, underscoring the sustained pressure on both stocks across multiple trading days.
Losses spread across the region. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 4.3 per cent to 69,194.6 points, with chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron down 3.2 per cent. Taiwan’s TAIEX dropped 3.6 per cent and TSMC fell 2.1 per cent.
SoftBank, one of OpenAI’s largest backers, fell 12.5 per cent in Tokyo after reports that OpenAI could delay its public market debut until 2027. Chief executive Sam Altman has reportedly pushed advisers to target a $1 trillion valuation for the listing, up from a latest private market valuation of $730bn. US-listed subsidiary Arm Holdings fell 3.1 per cent during Thursday trading.
OpenAI’s potential IPO timeline now stands as the next binary event for Asia’s tech-heavy indices: a confirmed 2027 listing date would crystallise the valuation gap investors are currently pricing as uncertainty.
