Kioxia Denies Deeper Cooperation with SK Hynix, Adopts Price Stability Strategy to Safeguard AI Demand

According to foreign media reports, Kioxia CEO Hiroo Ota recently responded to market rumors, explicitly ruling out the possibility of deepening cooperation with SK Hynix. He stated that such a move would face antitrust scrutiny hurdles and would be difficult to coordinate with the manufacturing facilities jointly owned by Kioxia and SanDisk.

Regarding pricing strategy, Kioxia has demonstrated a prudent and restrained approach. Hiroo Ota revealed that he has instructed the sales team not to significantly raise prices for data center operators, so as to avoid undermining investment willingness in the AI sector due to excessively high memory chip costs. He emphasized that Kioxia's current priority is to maintain chip prices at current elevated levels rather than pushing them higher — "If prices are pushed too high, it will ultimately harm the company's own market and growth." While Kioxia's average selling price (ASP) surged approximately 70% quarter-over-quarter in the second quarter, another 70% sequential increase is unlikely, as even hyperscale cloud service providers have budget constraints.

That said, Hiroo Ota did not completely rule out the possibility of future price increases. On the demand side, NAND chip demand from the world's largest technology suppliers remains robust, with some companies even seeking to sign long-term contracts extending to 2030. Kioxia is on track to achieve its goal of having long-term agreements cover 50% of its shipment volume.

According to Korean media citing industry insiders, Apple recently signed a NAND flash long-term agreement (LTA), and the market speculates that Kioxia is most likely the counterparty. The contract is expected to span 3 to 5 years with no price cap, though specific details such as transaction volume and pricing terms have not been disclosed.

According to CFM's data, Kioxia's product ASP saw a significant quarter-over-quarter increase in the second quarter, and the production capacity share of BiCS8 FLASH exceeded 50%, driving NAND Flash sales revenue to grow 73.5% quarter-over-quarter. Its market share reached 14.4%, ranking fourth in revenue among all memory manufacturers.