Micron Technology shares went up early Friday, showing little reaction to new investment plans from South Korean competitor SK Hynix.
The stock rose 1.6% in premarket trading. Although it has dropped 10% in the past month, it is still up over 600% from a year ago.
Investors are still watching to see when memory chip supply will meet the strong demand from AI hardware. On Friday, SK Hynix said its board approved 54.3 trillion won, or about $38.15 billion, for new chip factories in South Korea.
Even though this is a large investment, it probably will not worry investors, since they have already seen much bigger spending plans. In June, SK Hynix and Samsung said they would together spend about 800 trillion won, or around $518.58 billion, to build new chip manufacturing centers in southwest Korea.
Big chip factories usually take years to start operating. Micron’s $100 billion project in New York, announced in 2022, is not expected to begin production until 2030. Most new memory chip capacity is not expected for about another year, with more coming in 2028.
SK Hynix’s American depositary receipts dropped a little in premarket trading, and its shares in South Korea finished the day down almost 5% on Friday.
