NAND welcomes the hot summer! Funds flock to grab shares, and Kaxia stocks are temporarily suspended in early trading.

On Monday morning, due to a surge of funds, trading of shares of Japanese semiconductor manufacturer Kioxia was suspended. Prior to this, the company announced a significant increase in profits and provided guidance far exceeding market expectations. The Tokyo-based company stated last Friday that it expects operating profit for the June quarter to reach 1.3 trillion yen (approximately $8.2 billion), higher than the annual profit record as of March. Data also showed that Kioxia's quarterly profit as of March reached a record 596.8 billion yen, exceeding even Toyota Motor Corporation, making it one of Japan's most profitable companies. Kioxia also announced last Friday plans to list its common stock American Depositary Shares on the New York Stock Exchange to expand investor base, enhance global corporate valuation, and increase international influence. So far this year, Kioxia's stock price has risen by approximately 300%. Investors believe that the company, like high bandwidth memory (HBM) manufacturers, is a major beneficiary of the global trend in artificial intelligence data center construction. Kioxia's NAND storage is used to support artificial intelligence accelerators, such as those produced by NVIDIA. Kioxia's stock outperformed other major semiconductor manufacturers Formerly Toshiba's semiconductor business, Kioxia has long been focused on NAND storage. The company expects demand for its products to continue to strengthen. Currently, the company is in discussions with several large artificial intelligence data center customers to secure long-term supply agreements, locking in product supply orders for 2027 and 2028. Kioxia revealed that NAND storage prices rose by more than double in the March quarter, and due to supply constraints, prices are expected to continue to trend upwards for the rest of the year. For a long time, Kioxia has struggled to compete with larger rivals like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and its investment resilience was relatively weaker during periods of semiconductor downturn. However, the recent shift of resources towards HBM by Korean semiconductor giants, the core component of high-end AI processors, has allowed Kioxia to gain more market share in the NAND storage market. Takeru Hanaya, analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities, stated, "This is a hot season for the NAND storage industry, and there are no concerns about supply and demand dynamics loosening." Kioxia's CFO, Yoshihiko Kawamura, also mentioned that the company plans to announce specific measures to enhance shareholder return next month and is considering issuing dividends.