Samsung negotiations collapse: 50,000 employees to strike for 18 days starting tomorrow, Taiwanese firms ADATA and Nanya Technology rise in tandem to fill the gap

The third mediation negotiation between the Samsung Electronics labor union and management broke down again today (20th), with 50,000 employees confirmed to launch an 18-day full-scale strike starting on the 21st. Jefferies estimates that this shutdown will impact approximately 3% of global memory production capacity, with expectations of intensified HBM supply shortages. (Previous coverage: Samsung union confirms 18-day strike starting 5/21: Negotiations to resume only after 6/7, worsening the HBM supply chain crisis) (Background: We want TSMC-level salaries! 37,000 Samsung employees protest for "15% chip profit sharing," threatening a general strike) The National Labor Relations Commission held its third mediation meeting this morning (20th), but both Samsung Electronics labor and management failed to reach a consensus. The union immediately announced that up to 50,000 of its members would launch a full-scale strike from May 21 to June 7, totaling 18 days. Samsung union leader Choi Seung-ho stated after the mediation that management "did not show any attitude until the end," and that room for negotiation had effectively never truly opened. The union proposed three core demands: - Abolish the current 50% cap on annual performance bonuses (benchmarking the bonus mechanism of competitor SK Hynix) - Require the company to allocate 15% of operating profit for employee bonuses, estimated at approximately $30 billion - Reject Samsung's proposed alternative of choosing between "10% of operating profit or 20% of economic value added" Benefiting from the AI boom in recent years, Samsung's stock price once more than doubled, but employee bonuses still lag significantly behind SK Hynix, leading to widespread dissatisfaction that has surfaced during this round of negotiations. The court has issued a ruling on staffing during the strike, requiring Samsung to maintain attendance levels equivalent to "regular weekdays or normal weekends and holidays," rejecting Samsung's request for a version requiring 7,000 employees on-site daily. If the union violates this decision, it will face a daily fine of 100 million KRW. On the other hand, the issue of halted machinery goes beyond just an 18-day stoppage. Restarting and calibrating semiconductor equipment usually takes twice as long, meaning the actual impact could be closer to 36 days. Analysts estimate that this shutdown could cause approximately $3 billion in semiconductor production losses. Samsung currently holds nearly 40% of the global DRAM and NAND market share, and about half of the capacity at the Pyeongtaek campus could be affected. Samsung's stock price plunged nearly 4% after the news was confirmed, with some market capital immediately shifting to the Taiwanese memory sector, viewed as a beneficiary. ADATA (3260) rose 3.97%, while Nanya Technology (2408) and Transcend (2451) also trended upward. A larger beneficiary may be SK Hynix. As the other memory giant in South Korea, it currently holds the top global market share in the HBM market, and Samsung's shutdown will further consolidate its bargaining power in the AI memory supply chain. Following the news of the Samsung strike, Wall Street investment banks reacted with near-unanimous sentiment. Investment bank Jefferies estimates that this shutdown will impact approximately 3% of global memory chip production capacity, with the supply-side gap immediately boosting the valuation space for competitor Micron. Mizuho Securities analyst Vijay Rakesh immediately raised Micron's target price from $740 to $800 and reiterated an "Outperform" rating, citing that the price hike trend for Micron's NAND and DRAM memory chips is expected to continue through 2027. Citi analyst Atif Malik wrote in a research report that HBM prices will rise further in 2027, noting that memory manufacturers, including Micron, are likely to "remain highly disciplined" when expanding capacity next year "to prevent AI data centers from cutting HBM capacity." The implication of this statement is worth reading closely. "Remaining disciplined" by manufacturers does not mean a lack of capacity, but rather a deliberate control of supply growth rates to avoid repeating the price-cutting cycles seen at the end of previous memory market booms. For AI data center operators, this means the downside potential for HBM unit prices is being systematically compressed. Samsung only just started mass production of HBM4 in February 2026, and it is reported that the entire 2026 HBM4 capacity has already been sold out. If the strike further compresses the schedule, the uncertainty in HBM4 delivery times will directly impact the procurement plans of downstream GPU customers such as Nvidia.