Micron Technology's stock plummeted 5.02% in intraday trading on Thursday, underperforming the broader market. The sharp decline came after Micron's South Korean rival SK Hynix warned of weaker demand outlook for memory chips used in consumer electronics like PCs and smartphones.
While SK Hynix expects sales of its high-end chips used in generative AI applications to more than double this year, it cautioned that commodity memory chip demand will decline steeply. This divergence in demand trends for different types of semiconductors weighed on chip stocks broadly.
SK Hynix's comments suggesting overall semiconductor demand uncertainty in 2025 raised concerns for Micron, a major player in the memory chip market. Micron derives a significant portion of its revenue from sales of DRAM and NAND memory chips used in PCs, smartphones and other consumer electronics.