Fuelled by the memory chip shortage, sales by South Korea’s four big semiconductor manufacturers have soared 152% to $1,270m this year, but a long hangover looms: enormous new memory chip capacity is coming on stream in Korea just as the market looks set to go ex-growth, and, reports the Wall Street Journal, there are widespread fears that in order to keep their lines running at optimal efficiency, fierce price-cutting to the point where the parts are being sold at below cost will ensue, leading to a re run of the battle the US had with Japan, but this time with the Korean manufacturers.
