Domestic and foreign semiconductor and technology stocks plummeted across the board following analysis that artificial intelligence company Anthropic's revenue growth fell short of market expectations.
While revenue surged more than 7-fold in half a year, market expectations were even higher, according to the analysis.
Today (August 19), on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) market, SK Hynix opened with a 7% plunge and Samsung Electronics tumbled 6%.
A sell sidecar was triggered on the KOSPI for the 25th time this year.
Previously on the New York Stock Exchange, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plummeted 5%, while Micron dropped 7%, SanDisk 9%, and Nvidia fell by more than 2%.
Amid dampened investor sentiment toward tech stocks due to rising international oil prices and long-term interest rates, concerns over a slowdown in growth at Anthropic, the developer of the AI model 'Claude', acted as an additional negative factor.
According to Bloomberg, Anthropic's annualized recurring revenue (ARR) surpassed $65 billion as of the end of last month.
This figure converts the current revenue trend into an annual scale assuming it continues for a year.
This represents an increase of more than 7 times in about half a year from approximately $9 billion at the end of last year.
However, the issue was not the scale of revenue, but the pace of growth.
Anthropic's ARR grew by about 38% over two months, from $47 billion at the end of May to $65 billion at the end of July.
While still a rapid growth trend, Reuters evaluated that the growth pace has slowed down compared to the monthly growth rates of 58% and 57% in April and May, respectively.
It also fell short of market expectations.
Some parts of the market had previously projected that Anthropic's ARR could grow up to around $70 billion to $80 billion by the end of last month.
AI-related stocks have surged previously on expectations that the explosive growth of AI companies would support massive data center investments.
However, if the growth pace of representative AI companies slows down faster than expected, questions could arise regarding the sustainability of astronomical investments pouring into GPUs, memory, and storage.
On the other hand, there are counterarguments that the fact Anthropic achieved this level of growth despite a shortage of computing capacity and intensifying competition is itself evidence that AI demand remains strong.
Ultimately, analyses suggest that amid a high-interest-rate environment, market focus is shifting from simply how fast AI companies are growing to how much revenue and cash flow they can generate while absorbing massive investment costs.
Reported by Kim Minjeong | Video by Choi Kang-san | Graphics by Yook Do-hyun | Produced by SBS Digital News
※
Copying, redistribution, and unauthorized use in AI training are strictly prohibited.