By Jihoon Lee and Hyunjoo Jin

SEOUL (Reuters) – Shares in Samsung Electronics (KS:), the sphere’s top memory chip maker, fell on Wednesday to their lowest stage in more than four years amid worries about the affect of U.S. tariffs beneath a contemporary Donald Trump administration, analysts mentioned.

The South Korean tech giant is the worst performing stock among world chipmakers like TSMC and Nvidia (NASDAQ:) this 365 days, as it has lagged at the abet of competitors in tapping booming ask for synthetic intelligence chips.

Trump’s doable tariffs on Chinese language imports are considered dealing a greater blow to Samsung, which has a increased reliance on Chinese language clients than its native rival SK Hynix, mentioned Lee Min-hee, an analyst at BNK Investment & Securities.

Hynix has been rising gross sales of high-demolish AI server chips to U.S. clients like Nvidia.

Trump has threatened to impose a universal 10% tariff on imports and 60% on Chinese language items, which might maybe decrease ask for electronics products that use chips, mentioned Greg Noh, an analyst at Hyundai Motor (OTC:) Securities.

Final week, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol additionally raised concerns that Trump’s menace of steep tariffs on Chinese language imports also can advised Chinese language competitors to cleave export costs and undercut Korean chip companies in a foreign nation.

Samsung shares are down 34% in the 365 days-to-date and no longer off course to submit their worst annual performance in more than two decades. Shares in SK Hynix occupy risen 32% thus a long way this 365 days, and U.S. chipmaker Nvidia has received 199%.

Samsung shares, South Korea’s most priceless stock, prolonged declines to a fourth straight session, down 2.1% as of 0126 GMT, after falling as phenomenal as 2.5% to 51,700 won, the bottom since June 24, 2020, while the broader market fell 1.5%.

SK Hynix rose as phenomenal as 2%, after falling for 2 consecutive lessons.