SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won signaled that the group is weighing the construction of a new memory chip plant in Japan and will present a concrete investment plan by the end of this year. He also named cooperation with Kioxia, the Japanese NAND flash maker in which SK hynix (000660) holds a stake, as one option.
In an interview with Japan's Asahi Shimbun on the 2nd, Chey said the group is reviewing new plant construction in Japan and other overseas locations, and that it may lay out a specific investment plan within this year.
"Memory chips for data centers are 20 to 30 percent short," Chey said, explaining that the large-scale investment underway in South Korea alone would be difficult to meet the strong demand.
Chey described Japan as "a very attractive candidate site, also in terms of risk and culture," adding that the group has already received offers from several local governments. He did not name specific sites in the interview, though earlier reports said SK hynix was considering building a memory plant in Miyagi Prefecture.
Asked about the possibility of cooperating with Kioxia, he responded positively. Asahi Shimbun reported that Chey called Kioxia "a company with many strengths" and said cooperation was possible in areas such as joint production, research and development, and supply chain sharing. He cited U.S.-based SanDisk, which has set up a joint venture with Kioxia to jointly produce its main products, as a model case.
If SK hynix pursues full-scale cooperation with Kioxia, it could shake up the NAND flash market, where Samsung Electronics (005930) has held the top spot amid a challenge from China's Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC). According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, Samsung Electronics ranked first among NAND flash suppliers in the second quarter of this year by shipments with 25 percent, followed by SK hynix at 22 percent and YMTC at 14 percent. YMTC entered the top three for the first time, edging out fourth-ranked Kioxia, also at 14 percent, by a narrow margin. Combining SK hynix and Kioxia would produce a scale exceeding that of first-ranked Samsung Electronics.
The relationship is a dual one — competitor and investor at the same time — but the remarks are read as a plan to expand cooperation. SK hynix holds Kioxia convertible bonds at a level described as enough to secure most voting rights, making it effectively the largest shareholder. An official in Japan's semiconductor industry told Asahi Shimbun that "many companies handle NAND flash, but only a limited number can survive on technological capability," adding that "given that Kioxia is a company specialized in NAND, it would be attractive from SK hynix's standpoint." Kioxia said it is "cooperating with SK hynix on research and development of magnetoresistive random-access memory (MRAM)," and that it "will maintain a good relationship going forward."
