KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia closed lower on Friday amid mixed regional market performance as investors turned cautious over a possible rate hike by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) and upcoming US economic data that may influence the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) interest rate decision next week. At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) pared most earlier losses to settle 4.55 points easier, or 0.28 per cent, to 1,616.52 from Thursday’s close of 1,621.07. The benchmark index, which opened 0.37 of-a-point lower at 1,620.70, moved between 1,609.67 and 1,621.25 throughout the day. The broader market was negative, with decliners outpacing advancers 604 to 439. A total of 550 counters were unchanged, 1,151 untraded, and 18 suspended. Turnover declined to 3.17 billion units worth RM2.24 billion from 4.48 billion units worth RM2.75 billion yesterday. Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-presiden...
Key Takeaways
Supply tightness until 2026: SanDisk expects the NAND flash market to remain undersupplied through at least 2026, driven by strong AI and cloud demand.
Pricing power intact: Company raised prices by 10% across all channels in September, with more hikes possible.
Next-gen upgrades: Rapid transition to BICS 8 NAND (40–50% output by year-end) and co-development of High Bandwidth Flash (HBF) with SK hynix.
Industry-wide upcycle: Peers Micron (MU), Western Digital (WDC), and Seagate (STX) also benefit from AI-led storage demand.
Market Tightness to Persist
SanDisk CEO David Goeckeler said hyperscale data centers shifting from AI training to inference workloads are consuming NAND at record pace. With limited new capacity coming online, undersupply could extend well into 2026.
Strong Pricing Momentum
SanDisk raised 10% prices on new orders after Sept 5, citing broad-based demand from AI, cloud, and mobile. CFO Luis Visoso said more pricing gains are likely as contracts are renegotiated.
Technology Roadmap
BICS 8 ramp: Targeting 40–50% penetration of output by FY-end.
Older nodes phased out: BICS 5 & 6 retiring faster.
HBF (High Bandwidth Flash): New NAND-based memory architecture with SK hynix, targeting late 2026 launch; promises HBM-like bandwidth with 8–16x density.
Stock Performance Snapshot (YTD to Sep 15, 2025)
SanDisk (SNDK): +157% | NAND rev +8%
Seagate (STX): +148% | NAND rev +32%
Western Digital (WDC): +128% | NAND rev +30%
Micron (MU): +88% | NAND rev +4%
Outlook
The NAND cycle is entering a multi-year uptrend, powered by AI, data center, and next-gen memory adoption. SanDisk’s pricing discipline and roadmap (BICS 8 + HBF) position it as a key beneficiary of the structural storage upcycle.
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