Kioxia shares fell 13.09% at the open on July 17 to JPY 53,980, extending a drop that has taken the Japanese memory chip maker more than 50% below its record high of JPY 108,600 reached a month ago.
According to the report, the stock is now down about 52% from that peak. The selloff has erased at least $185 billion in market value and knocked Kioxia from the top spot in Japan’s market-cap ranking to fourth place.
Just a month earlier, in mid-June, Kioxia had overtaken Toyota Motor and become the most valuable listed company in Japan. Since then, the reversal has been swift.
Japan’s No. 1 company by market value has changed hands seven times this year. Toyota Motor, SoftBank Group and Kioxia have all held the position, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group currently sits at the top.
From market leader to sharp reversal in a month
Kioxia’s rise had been one of the more striking moves in Japanese equities. The company, a major producer of NAND flash memory, spent years working through one of the memory industry’s harsh downturns. After its 2024 listing, the backdrop changed. Demand for memory and data storage climbed with the AI trade, lifting the stock until it moved past Toyota in June.
The report said Kioxia at one point became the best-performing constituent in the MSCI World Index.
Bloomberg cites concerns over the silicon cycle
Bloomberg quoted Yugo Tsuboi, chief strategist at Daiwa Securities, as saying: “The chip industry has always been sensitive to the silicon cycle. We’ve seen this pattern many times.”
In the report, the “silicon cycle” refers to the familiar boom-and-bust rhythm in memory chips: prices jump when supply is tight, then come under pressure once new output arrives.
Tsuboi also said Chinese memory makers are rising quickly, and investors are starting to think the global uptrend in memory pricing could slow. “It’s getting harder to maintain expectations for profit growth to keep accelerating, and fast-money investors may already have taken profits,” he said.
Capacity expansion and a broader chip reset
The pressure is not limited to Kioxia alone. The report said Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have both announced capacity expansion, while Chinese producers including ChangXin Memory Technologies, or CXMT, are entering the field. That has added to worries about oversupply and whether the pricing cycle is near its top.
The broader semiconductor trade has also weakened. On Thursday, a U.S. semiconductor stock index fell more than 4%. The report said concerns over Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s AI spending overshadowed upbeat guidance in its earnings report. Money has started rotating out of AI-linked names and into laggards, while investors question whether heavy AI spending can justify current valuations.
Bullish targets clash with exit signals
Even after the decline, analysts have not fully abandoned the stock. Bloomberg reported that the market still sees about 118% upside for Kioxia over the next year. Another potential support point is the Topix index review scheduled for October, which is expected to bring passive inflows.
Set against that is a very different signal. The report said Japanese retail investors hold a relatively high share of leveraged positions in Kioxia, which could amplify downside risk if selling intensifies. It also noted that major shareholder Bain Capital has chosen to exit, a move some investors interpret as a sign that both the semiconductor cycle and Kioxia’s rally may be nearing a peak.
Those two signals — roughly 118% expected upside on one side and a large shareholder heading for the exit on the other — capture how divided the market remains over the current memory trade.