End of a chip boom? Memory chip price drop spooks investors

Seoul

AFTER a blistering year-and-a-half-long surge, a sudden drop in some memory chip prices - followed by Samsung Electronics' disappointing profit estimate - is causing jitters among investors who had bet that the chip boom would last at least another year.

Amid news that the market has started losing some steam - prices of high-end flash memory chips, which are widely used in smartphones, dropped nearly 5 per cent in the fourth quarter - some analysts now expect the industry's growth rate will fall by more than half this year to 30 per cent.

That led shares in Samsung to dip 7.5 per cent last week, while its home rival SK H…