[E-Daily Reporter Park Jung-Soo ] On the 8th, KB Securities maintained its “Buy” rating on SamsungElectronics(005930), stating that an improvement in the memory market is set to gain momentum due to expanded investment in artificial intelligence (AI), and raised its target price by 9% from 550,000 won to 600,000 won. The previous day’s closing price was 296,000 won.
Kim Dong-won, Head of Research at KB Securities, analyzed, “Concerns about AI are merely noise, and excessive worry actually presents a buying opportunity,” adding, “Competition to secure memory will intensify starting in the second half of the year.”
KB Securities projected that the global AI investment market will expand from $800 billion in 2026 to $1.1 trillion in 2027 and $1.5 trillion in 2028, leading to a prolonged memory supply shortage. Accordingly, the firm raised its third-quarter price growth forecasts for DRAM and NAND to 22% and 25%, respectively, and also revised upward its full-year 2026 growth projections to 312% for DRAM and 286% for NAND. Reflecting these changes, it raised its operating profit forecasts for this year and next year to 381 trillion won and 574 trillion won, respectively.
The firm also explained that second-quarter earnings exceeded market expectations. Division Head Kim Dong-won emphasized, “Second-quarter operating profit reached 89.4 trillion won—a 19-fold increase year-over-year—and exceeded market consensus, even after recognizing the full provision for first-half performance bonuses.” He added, “In particular, adjusted second-quarter operating profit, excluding the performance bonus provision, is estimated at 107 trillion won, which is effectively considered an earnings surprise.”
Operating profit for the second half of the year is projected to reach 234 trillion won, a 627% increase compared to the same period last year. Kim noted, “While the increase in memory supply will remain limited through the first half of 2028, demand for AI memory is growing rapidly due to the spread of agentic AI,” adding, “Competition to secure memory will intensify starting in the second half of the year.”
He also projected that the expansion of AI applications would significantly boost memory demand. He estimated that AI agents would triple memory demand, autonomous driving would quintuple it, and robotics would increase it more than tenfold. Head Kim assessed, “In the second half of the year, factors driving the stock price upward will include shareholder return policies such as share buybacks and special dividends; share repurchases to fund performance-based bonuses; price negotiations for High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) in 2027; new foundry orders from global Big Tech companies; and consideration of a U.S. ADR listing.”