SK Hynix says some customers brought forward orders ahead of US tariffs

By Heekyong Yang and Hyunjoo Jin

Ishon, South Korea (Reuters) -Sk Hynix in South Korea, the second largest memory chip maker in the world, said on Thursday that some customers had issued orders in preparation for the new US tariffs on semiconductors.

Speaking at the company’s annual shareholders ’meeting, Lee, SK Hynix’s global sales and marketing, said that the effects of“ clouds ”, along with a decrease in customer stocks, have led to favorable market conditions.

But he added that it remains to see whether the trend will continue.

In January, SK Hynix said that its shipments are from DRAM and Nand Flash Flashs will decrease by 10 % and 20 % in the first quarter of this year of the previous quarter.

American chip maker Micro, Sandisk and YMTC in China recently raised the prices of memory chips, partly due to the strong demand from the artificial intelligence market, according to media reports.

Micron, Sandisk and YMTC were not immediately available for comment when contacting it by Reuters.

US president Donald Trump said in February that he intends to impose a tariff on semiconductor imports and some other products “in the 25 % neighborhood.”

“Fears that the United States may impose a semiconductor tariff in April has led to a preventive transfer of semiconductor stocks to the United States,” Nomura said in this week’s report.

He added: “It was not yet known whether the definitions would actually be shown; if this is achieved, this may lead to the high prices of the specified products, which may weaken the demand.”

The CEO of KWAK NoH-Jung told shareholders that the main supplier of the AI ​​NVIDIA chip leader expects an “explosive growth” in this year HBM, supported by investments in data centers.

In January, SK Hynix expects their HBM sales more than twice this year.

“HBM sales have already been sold for 2025, and we plan to finish finishing sales with customers in the size of 2026 during the first half of this year to increase the promotion of revenue stability,” said Kwak.

While doubts about a slowdown in spending on artificial intelligence devices appeared in January after the allegations of the Chinese company Deepseek that it had developed the models of Amnesty International that compete with their Western counterparts at a cost of cost, NVIDIA indicated last month that the demand for artificial intelligence chips was sound.

KWAK saw the appearance of Deepseek as ultimately useful for Sk Hynix.

“It is likely that this has a positive effect on the medium to the long demand on artificial intelligence chips. From our point of view, we do not see Deepseek slowing the demand for high -performance speeds or HBM,” said Kwak.