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Photo: Samsung Electronics |
[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] KB Securities raised its target price for Samsung Electronics from 70,000 won to 82,000 won, maintaining a "Buy" rating, citing expectations for the company to enter a memory upswing cycle starting in the second quarter of this year.
KB Securities explained, "Recently, DRAM and NAND supply has been falling short of customer order requests, reaching only half of the demand. As supply lags behind the recovery speed of demand, emergency orders from customers are increasing."
KB Securities also projected that Samsung Electronics will raise DRAM and NAND prices starting next month. They estimated Samsung's first-quarter operating profit at 5.2 trillion won, in line with market consensus, and forecast continued growth through the fourth quarter.
Looking toward the second half of the year, researcher Kim predicted that the supply-demand improvement trend for general-purpose (legacy) memory will continue. Consequently, semiconductor (DS) operating profits are expected to improve significantly, with projections of 500 billion won for Q1, 2.8 trillion won for Q2, 6.3 trillion won for Q3, and 8.1 trillion won for Q4.
KB Securities also highlighted that DRAM and NAND demand growth (15%) will outpace production growth (10%) from this year to next. "With the end of inventory adjustments by customers, the industry is expected to reach normal inventory levels (6-7 weeks) by the end of this month," they stated.
Furthermore, KB Securities noted that the potential expansion of NVIDIA’s HBM3E 12-layer supply in the second half of the year is expected to improve DRAM product mix and reduce supply. The upcoming release of the iPhone 17, which will likely increase memory capacity from 8GB to 12GB for Apple’s AI-driven operations, is also expected to drive future mobile DRAM demand.
Alphabiz Reporter Paul Lee(hoondork1977@alphabiz.co.kr)
