Kyung Kye-hyun, the immediate former president of Samsung Electronics' (005930.KS) Device Solutions (DS) division, warned that memory chip prices will fall starting in the second half of next year, urging the industry to take pre-emptive action.
Kyung, who also served as a CEO of Samsung Electronics, delivered the keynote at the 285th NAEK Forum hosted by the National Academy of Engineering of Korea (NAEK) at L-Tower in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on Tuesday. "Chinese companies are aggressively expanding capacity (CAPA)," he said. "There is a possibility that the market will shift from the second half of next year or the first half of 2028, when memory supply surges."
Citing global market research firms, Kyung forecast that memory prices will decline from the second half of next year, when worldwide memory production capacity is set to expand sharply. "If returns relative to Big Tech's capital expenditures decline, there is a possibility of investment cutbacks," he said, warning that beyond 2028, not only prices but memory demand itself could shrink.
Kyung said Korea's semiconductor industry, led by Samsung Electronics and SK hynix (000660.KS), is enjoying unprecedented growth on the back of soaring memory demand from Big Tech, but must prepare for life after the super-cycle. "Korea holds about 70% of the DRAM market, but only 1.5% of the fabless (chip design) market, and unlike Taiwan, our full-stack semiconductor ecosystem, including fabless, is weak," he said.
Kyung advised that "Korea should leap forward as a deep tech-based manufacturing nation." The point, he said, is that Korea must independently secure advanced technologies — not only in memory but also in fabless-based system semiconductors and sovereign AI — and actively apply them to manufacturing, the country's traditional strength.
"It is difficult to compete with the United States and China in both hardware and software," he added. "It is important to do what Korea can do well, and for that, we must seriously consider how to adopt AI."
