[Edaily Reporter Shin Ha-yeon] Even amid market volatility, foreign investors continue to buy in the KOSDAQ market. Among these, foreign buying is particularly concentrated on #Paduda, a fabless company specializing in SSD controller chips. This reflects expectations that the company will continue to benefit from its SSD controllers, which boast competitive power efficiency, as demand for high-performance SSDs grows alongside the expansion of AI data centers.

According to MP Doctor on the 9th, foreign investors have recorded net purchases totaling 1.2 trillion won in the KOSDAQ market so far this month through the previous day. This trend stands in stark contrast to the KOSPI market, where foreign investors have shown a net selling position of nearly 19 trillion won over the same period.

Even as the domestic stock market underwent a sharp correction the previous day, foreign buying momentum continued to flow into the KOSDAQ market. On the 8th, the KOSDAQ closed down 9.08% from the previous trading day, yet foreign investors made net purchases of 298 billion won.

The stock that attracted the strongest concentration of foreign buying on the KOSDAQ was Padu. Over the past month, foreign investors have made net purchases of Padu worth 493 billion won. This ranks first in terms of foreign net buying on the KOSDAQ market during the same period. Even on a year-to-date basis, Padu remains the top foreign net buyer (628 billion won). Foreign ownership has more than doubled, rising from 11.45% at the start of the year to 23.83% based on the previous trading day’s closing price.

Pado is a fabless company that designs controller chips for SSDs. SSD controllers are core components responsible for data input/output, error correction, and power management in NAND flash-based storage devices. Recently, as the demand for data storage and processing has grown alongside the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, interest in high-performance SSDs and the controller chips that manage them has also increased.

Since AI servers and data centers require infrastructure capable of not only large-scale computing but also storing and quickly retrieving vast amounts of data, this is interpreted as reflecting expectations that expanding demand for high-performance SSDs could serve as a medium- to long-term growth driver.

These expectations are also reflected in the stock price. Padu’s stock price has risen 286.2% from 27,600 won on February 3, the first day of trading resumption, to 106,600 won as of the close on the 8th. This represents a rise of more than five times compared to the price of 21,250 won just before trading resumed. The intraday high has also risen to 129,400 won.

Expectations for earnings growth are also cited as a factor supporting foreign investor demand. Padu’s annual revenue last year reached 92.4 billion won, doubling from the previous year (43.4 billion won). In the first quarter, consolidated revenue surged 209.8% year-over-year to 59.5 billion won, while operating profit and net profit turned profitable at 7.7 billion won and 10.2 billion won, respectively.

For this year, the company has raised its internal revenue target to 300 billion won, representing more than a threefold increase from the previous year. As of early this month, cumulative new orders have already surpassed 300 billion won.

Baek Gil-hyun, an analyst at Yuanta Securities, explained, “Since multiple SSDs are connected in parallel in data center servers, the importance of power efficiency differentiation in the market continues to grow.” He added, “As of now, the company has secured three North American hyperscaler clients, and there is a possibility of securing 4 to 5 clients among the top six cloud service providers by 2027.” He added, “We are seeing a tangible increase in rush orders, and there is potential for further upward revisions depending on the order situation.”

Meanwhile, the company appears to be expanding its engagement with overseas institutional investors and strengthening communication with global investors. In a regulatory filing released today, Padu announced that it will participate in the “2026 BofA Korea Conference” for overseas institutional investors in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, from the 15th to the 17th, and will hold non-deal roadshows (NDRs) for overseas institutional investors in Asia and the Americas from the 16th to the 24th.