NAND chip prices will decline by 4 billion 400 million on the day of Samsung's market value evaporated

As investors worried that the NAND flash memory chip prices fell, the chip manufacturers profit prospects overshadowed, Samsung and Hynix Semiconductor (Hynix Semiconductor) stock prices fell sharply. Samsung Electronics, the world's largest maker of memory chips, fell 4.4% to $629 thousand / share, making its market value shrink by $4 trillion and 300 billion ($4 billion 400 million). South Korea's second largest chip company Hynix shares fell to 29 thousand and 150 won / share of 6%.

Analysts said Monday, media reports of the Toshiba Co of Japan and SanDisk will work together to build a new factory in NAND news, leading to excess supply and lead to NAND prices and lower profits to worry; the United States will continue to raise interest rates, could hit the US consumer spending is expected to spread, this also caused adverse effects on the stock market. U.S. semiconductor shares also fell on Monday, the Philadelphia stock exchange Semiconductor Index fell 1.7%. KTB Asset Management Co CEO Chang In-hwan said the decline was mainly due to the NAND chip market concerns, brokers are in lower expectations for the first quarter, the U.S. interest rate negotiations also make cautious on the stock investors and exporters.

With Christmas and the end of the Chinese new year, MP3 and digital cameras on the demand for NAND chips decline, NAND prices have been falling against the memory chip maker's stock. A Samsung Corp manager last week predicted that this quarter NAND flash prices will reach 20% decline. Samsung Securities analyst Lawrence Lee said, it seems that the impact of seasonal weakness in the first half of the year will be more than expected, Samsung Electronics will be more difficult to achieve analysts on 2006 profit target. Last week, affected by inventory increases and seasonal weakness, the broker lowered the Samsung Corp 06-07 annual profit forecast.

Toshiba and SanDisk will jointly invest 500 billion yen ($4 billion 300 million) to build a new flash memory chip factory in Japan, the Japan Economic News reported on Monday. Daewoo securities analyst Chung Chang-won said that if the message is accurate for people will increase (NAND chip) of excess supply entering the market for worry, anyone can do it to do, when the entry of new competitors, profits will decrease. Toshiba said it would continue to invest in expanding NAND production, but did not decide to build a new plant.