Kioxia Holdings Corp., a Tokyo-based memory chipmaker, saw its shares fall as much as 15% on November 2 after forecasting December-quarter operating profit of 2 trillion yen (US$12.7 billion).

The forecast fell short of the 2.4 trillion yen (US$14.9 billion) analyst consensus. It was also only slightly above the 2 trillion yen (US$12.6 billion) reported for the September quarter, raising concerns that AI-related storage demand may be cooling.

Kioxia said the limited growth mainly reflected shipment timing rather than weaker demand. Some orders were pulled into the September quarter, while others were pushed to the March quarter because enterprise storage products need longer lead times.

CFO Yoshihiko Kawamura said demand from AI data center operators remained robust.

Samsung and SK hynix were also expected to post higher NAND profits and focus on upgrades and solid-state drive (SSD) mix rather than volume.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

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