[Edaily Reporter SOYEON KIM ] The securities industry is offering wildly divergent outlooks on SamsungElectronics’ stock price. Yuanta Securities Korea set a target price of 630,000 won, citing expectations that tight supply and demand—driven by surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory semiconductors—will persist through next year, as well as a positive outlook for the memory market. In contrast, BNK Investment & Securities lowered its target price to 270,000 won, based on its assessment that the slowdown in memory demand is continuing and competition among semiconductor companies to expand production capacity is intensifying.

With target prices for the same company—SamsungElectronics—spanning more than double the range, attention is focused on the future direction of the stock price.

According to financial information provider FnGuide Inc. on the 25th, the average target price for SamsungElectronics set by 22 securities firms stood at 493,864 won. This represents a 3.82% upward revision from the previous target price of 475,682 won.

In a report released on the 23rd, Yuanta Securities Korea raised its target price for SamsungElectronics from 530,000 won to 630,000 won, an 18.8% increase. Yuanta Securities Korea projected that the memory price uptrend would persist for the long term, given the continued rise in memory semiconductor prices and the impact of full-scale sales of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) 4. Baek Gil-hyun, an analyst at Yuanta Securities Korea, said, “We estimate that the quarterly average price increases for DRAM and NAND will be 18% and 16%, respectively.”

He added, “While the pace of memory semiconductor price increases will slow somewhat, tight supply-demand conditions are expected to persist through 2027–2028,” and He emphasized, “While the market is concerned about the possibility of a peak-out in 2028 due to new capacity expansions and HBM-related noise, considering that HBM is eroding general-purpose DRAM production capacity and the demand for high-capacity memory driven by the spread of AI inference, the resolution of supply constraints is likely to be delayed beyond expectations.”

The firm believes that if the memory upswing persists, the company is likely to propose shareholder-friendly return policies. Furthermore, it forecast that the deficit would decrease significantly due to rising foundry utilization rates. Analyst Baek noted, “It is positive that the deficit is assessed to have decreased significantly, given the foundry utilization rates centered on leading-edge processes.”

Yuanta Securities Korea projected SamsungElectronics’ Semiconductor (DS) division’s operating profit for the third quarter of this year at 100 trillion won. It estimated the memory division’s operating profit at 102 trillion won and the non-memory division’s operating loss at 2 trillion won.

BNK Investment & Securities anticipates that the slowdown in memory demand will continue, forecasting that upside potential for the stock price is limited. In a report released on the 14th, BNK Investment & Securities lowered its target price from 300,000 won to 270,000 won in response to the downward revision of earnings forecasts. Due to the limited upside potential, it also downgraded its investment rating from “Buy” to “Hold.”

The firm revised its third-quarter operating profit forecast for SamsungElectronics downward from 114.7 trillion won to 108.5 trillion won. Lee Min-hee, an analyst at BNK Investment & Securities, stated, “As memory prices reach their limit, demand elasticity is declining not only in IT products but also in servers,” adding, “The trend of slowing memory demand is continuing.”

She further noted, “While macroeconomic uncertainty is rising, memory prices are unlikely to rise further, and demand elasticity is declining; conversely, manufacturers are aggressively expanding capacity, optimistic about long-term demand.” In fact, companies such as Google and Meta are shifting their strategies from performance competition to improving cost-effectiveness and energy efficiency. She explained that OpenAI and Anthropic are also moderating the pace of frontier model development and focusing on security and reliability.

The analyst noted, “While shareholder return programs are positive, they are unlikely to influence the direction of the stock price,” adding, “Although expectations for improved foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) profitability remain valid, they have already been largely factored into the stock price.”