iM Securities Raises Unid Target Price 10% on Fertilizer Supply Concerns iM Securities on the 23rd raised its target price for Unid to 110,000 won from 100,000 won, citing expectations that global fertilizer supply disruptions will lift selling prices. It maintained a “buy” rating. Analyst Jeon Yu-jin said price increases have continued since the second half of 2025 as China’s potassium chloride supply tightened. She added that the Iran situation has disrupted supplies of nitrogen (N) and phosphate (P) fertilizers, expanding substitution demand for potassium (K) fertilizers. “Additional selling-price increases and higher sales volumes are expected,” she said. Unid posted first-quarter consolidated operating profit of 25.5 billion won, up 236% from the previous quarter, but slightly below the market consensus of 27.0 billion won. Operating profit at its South Korean unit rose 200% to 12.3 billion won on higher volumes after scheduled maintenance ended and the absence of one-off costs. A weaker won also supported profitability, the report said. Results improved sharply at the China unit. Sales volume dipped somewhat due to the Lunar New Year, but operating profit surged 373% to 12.3 billion won as caustic potash prices rose on tight potassium chloride supply and chlorine prices stayed firm. Losses in the chlorine business, a key drag in the past, are also narrowing quickly, it said. For the second quarter, iM Securities forecast operating profit of 35.0 billion won, up 37% from the prior quarter and above the market estimate of 32.3 billion won. It expects lower volumes in South Korea due to customers adjusting operating rates, but said that would be offset by higher volumes and prices at the China unit and continued strength in chlorine prices. The report also cited instability in the Middle East as a supportive factor. After the Iran situation, disruptions to supplies of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers such as ammonia and urea have tightened the global fertilizer market. While not a perfect substitute, rising demand for potassium fertilizers could add to upward price pressure, it said.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-23 08:06:19

DS Investment Raises Samsung Biologics Target Price to 2.1 Million Won, Keeps Buy Rating DS Investment & Securities on Wednesday maintained its “buy” rating on Samsung Biologics and raised its target price to 2.1 million won from 1.3 million won, citing steady growth after first-quarter results broadly matched market expectations. . Analyst Kim Min-jung said Samsung Biologics posted 2026 first-quarter revenue of about 1.2571 trillion won, up 25.8% from a year earlier, and operating profit of about 580.8 billion won, up 35.1%. Operating margin was 46.2%. The results were in line with prior market forecasts of 1.2797 trillion won in revenue and 590.2 billion won in operating profit. Kim said plants 1 through 4 were running at full capacity and previously deferred revenue was recognized, supporting the quarter’s performance. She added that the 180,000-liter Plant 5 is expected to begin contributing to revenue in the second half of this year, with structural operating-profit growth anticipated from 2027. The purchase price for GSK’s U.S. plant was finalized at $353 million — $280 million for the facility and $73 million for inventory and spare parts — and revenue from the plant is expected to be reflected starting in the second quarter. The acquisition is expected to be consolidated into results and could be a key driver for upward earnings revisions, Kim said. On a separate basis, Kim projected Samsung Biologics’ full-year 2026 revenue at 5.3843 trillion won and operating profit at 2.6772 trillion won, up 18.2% and 28.2%, respectively, from the previous year. DS Investment said the company’s medium- to long-term growth outlook remains intact. Samsung Biologics recently applied to the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority for a permit to build Plant 6, aiming to break ground within the year and complete construction in 2027. It also plans to accelerate expansion of domestic production facilities following completion of the U.S. plant acquisition and easing uncertainty over tariffs. Kim said the U.S. plant has capacity of about 60,000 liters, with orders already secured for about 50% of that capacity. She said additional orders could leave room for higher revenue estimates. Kim added that while the stock has been weak in the short term due to labor-management disputes, concerns about production disruptions are overdone and core processes are expected to remain stable. * This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-23 08:00:18

SK hynix Q1 profit nearly doubles from last best Q4 to record $25 bn SEOUL, April 23 (AJP) - SK hynix, a front-runner in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips designed for AI accelerators, delivered its best-yet quarter ended March with its three-month operating profit nearly doubled from the previous best and its top-line also at a record high. According to its disclosure Thursday, SK hynix’s quarterly operating profit of 37.61 trillion won ($25.4 billion) came in well above the market consensus of 34.9 trillion won compiled by FnGuide, nearly doubling its previous quarterly high of 19.17 trillion won in the fourth quarter of 2025 and 405 percent from a year ago. The red-hot performance follows a strong earnings signal from rival Samsung Electronics, which earlier projected first-quarter operating profit of 57.2 trillion won, surpassing its full-year 2025 income of 43.6 trillion won. The unprecedented earnings underscore SK hynix’s pricing power and dominance in the HBM segment, where demand has surged alongside the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure by global hyperscalers. Revenue also hit a record of 52.57 trillion won, rising 60 percent from the previous quarter and 198 percent from a year earlier. 2026-04-23 07:59:23

SK hynix posts record Q1 operating profit of 37.61 trillion won on 52.58 trillion won revenue SK hynix said on the 23rd it posted first-quarter revenue of 52.5763 trillion won and operating profit of 37.6103 trillion won, for an operating margin of 72%. Net profit was 40.3459 trillion won, a net margin of 77%. On a quarterly basis, revenue topped 50 trillion won for the first time. Operating profit and the operating margin were also the highest since the company was founded, at 37.6 trillion won and 72%, respectively. Operating profit roughly doubled from the previous quarter, underscoring a sharp improvement in profitability. “Despite the seasonal off-peak in the first quarter, demand remained strong as AI infrastructure investment expanded,” SK hynix said, adding that it “continued its earnings uptrend by increasing sales of high value-added products such as HBM, high-capacity server DRAM modules and eSSD.” Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the first quarter rose 19.4 trillion won from the end of the previous quarter to 54.3 trillion won. Borrowings fell 2.9 trillion won to 19.3 trillion won, resulting in net cash of 35 trillion won, the company said. SK hynix said it sees AI evolving from training large models to an “agentic AI” stage, where real-time inference is repeatedly performed across a range of service environments, broadening the base of memory demand across both DRAM and NAND. It also said the spread of memory-efficiency technologies should improve the economics of AI services and expand overall service scale, further supporting memory demand. On that basis, it forecast a favorable pricing environment for both DRAM and NAND to continue. The company said it will keep developing and supplying new products across DRAM and NAND to meet increasingly diverse memory demand. For high-bandwidth memory, it said it will further strengthen overall execution capabilities integrating performance, yield, quality and supply stability. In DRAM, it will step up supply of LPDDR6 using the world’s first 10-nanometer-class sixth-generation (1c) process, and of the 192-gigabyte SOCAMM2, which began mass production this month based on the same process. In NAND, it said it has begun supplying the consumer SSD (cSSD) “PQC21,” which applies CTF-based 321-layer quad-level cell (QLC) technology. It added it will respond flexibly to AI demand with an enterprise SSD (eSSD) lineup spanning high-performance triple-level cell (TLC) and high-capacity QLC across the full eSSD range. It also said it plans to strengthen competitiveness in AI data center and AI PC storage markets by leveraging synergies with Solidigm, where it has strengths in high-capacity QLC eSSD. SK hynix said that as customer demand continues to exceed supply capacity, securing the ability to supply in line with structural demand growth in the AI era has emerged as a key competitive edge. It said this year’s investment will rise sharply from last year, driven by the M15X ramp-up, infrastructure preparations centered on the Yongin cluster, and securing key equipment such as EUV tools. “We will strategically expand our production base to respond proactively to mid- to long-term demand growth,” SK hynix said. “Through investment that reflects demand visibility, we will secure both supply stability and financial soundness.”* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-23 07:54:21

Track Obstruction at Oido Station Delays 9 Seoul Subway Line 4 Trains A track obstruction disrupted service at Oido Station on Seoul Metropolitan Subway Line 4.  Yonhap News Agency reported that the problem occurred at about 4:18 a.m. Thursday at Oido Station on the Ansan Line in Siheung, south of Seoul, delaying nine trains by 10 to 30 minutes. KORAIL said an initial response team was dispatched and service returned to normal at about 6:08 a.m. It said trains were running normally but some residual impact could continue into the morning commute.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-23 07:51:14

Korea's consumer confidence turns negative from energy concerns SEOUL, April 23 (AJP) -South Korea's consumer confidence turned negative for the first time in a year, weighed down by worries over supply-side repercussions on inflation and economic performance from a Gulf-triggered energy shock, data showed Thursday. According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), the consumer sentiment index for April dipped 7.8 points to 99.2, the first time below the 100 threshold in a year. A reading below 100 indicates pessimism outweighs optimism compared with the long-term average. The monthly fall is the steepest since December 2024 amid the shock from a brief martial-law declaration. The drop was broad-based, reflecting a sharp deterioration in both household finances and perceptions of the broader economy. Sub-indices tracking household conditions all weakened. The index for current living standards fell 3 points to 91, while expectations for future living conditions dropped 5 points to 92. Outlooks for household income and spending also declined, each falling 3 points to 98 and 108, respectively. Perceptions of the economy turned decisively dimmer. The index measuring current economic conditions plunged 18 points to 68, while the outlook for future conditions dropped 10 points to 79. Job prospects also deteriorated, with the employment outlook index down 7 points to 82. The data underscore how external shocks are increasingly feeding into domestic sentiment, as households brace for a combination of rising costs and slowing growth. Inflation concerns intensified. The expected inflation rate for the coming year rose to 2.9 percent, up 0.2 percentage point from the previous month, with the anticipation for price rise spiked 4 points to 153 whereas that for income stayed stagnated at 120 to suggest bias for tightening in spending. Consumers pointed overwhelmingly to energy-linked costs as the main driver of price pressures. Petroleum products were cited by 88.8 percent of respondents as the key factor influencing inflation expectations, followed by industrial goods at 33.1 percent and public utilities at 31.4 percent. The surge in energy-related concerns comes amid heightened volatility in global oil markets following disruptions in the Middle East, reinforcing fears of cost-push inflation rippling through the economy. Interest rate expectations also moved higher, with the index climbing 6 points to 115, reflecting growing anticipation that borrowing costs could remain elevated or rise further. The April survey was conducted from April 9 to 16 among 2,262 households nationwide. 2026-04-23 07:36:42

USFK commander says wartime OPCON transfer conditions targeted by early 2029 Xavier Brunson, commander of the Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces Korea, said on April 22 (local time) that the allies have submitted a roadmap to the Defense Department aimed at meeting the conditions for transferring wartime operational control before the second quarter of fiscal 2029, which corresponds to the first quarter of 2029 in South Korea. According to Yonhap News Agency, Brunson made the remarks while testifying before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, responding to a question from committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican, about preparations for the OPCON transfer. The U.S. government’s fiscal 2029 runs from Oct. 1, 2028, to Sept. 30, 2029. The second quarter of fiscal 2029 covers January through March 2029. Brunson’s comments suggest a timetable to satisfy the conditions for the transfer no later than the first quarter of 2029. President Lee Jae-myung has said he aims to achieve the transfer during his term. The first quarter of 2029 overlaps with the end of President Donald Trump’s term, which runs through Jan. 20 that year, and the start of the next U.S. president’s term. The U.S. side may have drafted the roadmap with the possibility in mind that meeting the conditions could carry over into the next administration. Brunson said the allies would continue pursuing a conditions-based transfer and ensure all requirements are met. 2026-04-23 06:39:19

White House: No 3- to 5-Day Deadline Set for Iran Proposal The White House said Tuesday local time that President Donald Trump has not set a specific deadline for receiving a “unified proposal” from Iran. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters, “Contrary to some reports I saw today, the president has not set a firm deadline to receive Iran’s proposal.” Trump also told Fox News that a “three-to-five-day deadline” was not true, adding that he was not rushing talks with Iran. The comments followed a report Monday by Axios, citing anonymous officials, that Trump was willing to give Iran about three to five more days of a ceasefire period. Leavitt said there were “clearly many divisions” inside Iran, calling it a fight between pragmatists and hard-liners, and said the president wants a single, unified response. She said that while a ceasefire remains in place on military and physical strikes as the U.S. waits, the “Grand Wrath” operation continues, as does a maritime blockade of ships traveling to and from Iranian ports. She added that the president is satisfied with the situation while awaiting Iran’s response. 2026-04-23 06:06:16

Gangnam Prices Cool, but Seoul’s Midpriced Apartments Keep Rising The recent cooling in apartment prices in Seoul’s most expensive districts is being cited by some as a sign the housing market is stabilizing. The data show weakness in high-end areas, but prices and rents in neighborhoods where most buyers can realistically compete are still rising. According to weekly figures from the Korea Real Estate Board, Seoul apartment prices rose 0.10% in the second week of April, while the so-called Gangnam three districts extended their downturn to an eighth week. Gangnam-gu and Seocho-gu each fell 0.06%, and Songpa-gu slipped 0.01%. Yongsan-gu also turned weaker again. Outside the premium core, however, midpriced apartments in non-Gangnam areas strengthened. Over the same period, Gangbuk-gu rose 0.27%, Gangseo-gu 0.24%, Dongdaemun-gu and Seongbuk-gu 0.20% each, and Guro-gu 0.17%. Transaction data point in the same direction. Seoul apartment sales in March totaled 4,742, down 17.7% from the previous month, but the share of deals for apartments priced at 1.5 billion won or less climbed to 85.3%. An analysis also found many of the most-traded complexes were in outlying districts, with 43 of the top 50 located in those areas. Official transaction prices underscore the pressure on typical buyers. An analysis by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Korea Real Estate Board showed Seoul’s apartment sale prices in February rose 1.9% from the previous month and were up 15.7% from a year earlier. The strongest gains were in smaller units: apartments larger than 40 square meters and up to 60 square meters rose 2.95%. Jeonse deposits also increased. Seoul apartment jeonse transaction prices in February rose 0.22% from the previous month, and the city’s northeastern area climbed 0.85%. The pattern reflects demand shifting rather than disappearing. As regulations tighten around high-priced homes and investment demand, buyers who cannot access Gangnam look to districts such as Nowon, Guro, Gangseo and Seongbuk. The interest-rate backdrop has reinforced that shift. The Bank of Korea’s Monetary Policy Board on the 10th kept the benchmark rate at 2.50% a year. With borrowing costs still elevated and lending limits binding, demand tends to concentrate on homes that fit within loan ceilings. The broader question, the article argues, is which numbers policymakers treat as proof of stability. A pullback in a few symbolic high-end neighborhoods can look like progress, but housing stability for ordinary households depends on whether prices and rents in attainable areas are easing. Experts have repeatedly said the priority should be expanding private-sector-led supply, not simply focusing on whether Gangnam prices have dipped. The more relevant measure, they say, is who is facing greater strain as midpriced homes and jeonse costs continue to rise.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-23 06:04:38

South Korea Consumer Sentiment Falls Below 100 as Mideast War, Inflation Fears Grow Rising geopolitical risk tied to the war in the Middle East, along with inflation worries, pushed consumer sentiment below its long-term average for the first time in a year. According to the Bank of Korea’s consumer survey released on the 23rd, the April Consumer Composite Sentiment Index, or CCSI, fell 7.8 points from the previous month to 99.2. It was the first reading below the benchmark 100 since April last year. The CCSI is calculated from six components: current living standards, outlook for living standards, outlook for household income, outlook for consumer spending, assessment of current business conditions and outlook for business conditions. A reading above 100 indicates sentiment is more optimistic than the long-term average for 2003–2024; below 100 indicates pessimism. All six components declined. The index for assessment of current business conditions fell 18 points to 68, reflecting factors including disruptions to energy supplies. The outlook for business conditions dropped 10 points to 79 on concerns about rising prices and a slowing economy. The outlook for living standards fell 5 points to 92. Current living standards slipped 3 points to 91, the outlook for household income fell 3 points to 98, and the outlook for consumer spending dropped 3 points to 108. “Exports are showing a solid trend, but higher energy prices and supply disruptions stemming from the war in the Middle East, along with broader domestic and external uncertainty, affected consumer sentiment,” said Lee Heung-hoo, head of the Bank of Korea’s economic sentiment survey team. Separately, the outlook for interest rates rose 6 points to 115, reflecting higher market and lending rates and inflation concerns. The housing price outlook, which measures expectations that home prices will rise over the next year, climbed 8 points to 104. The bank cited continued gains in Seoul apartment sale prices, led by outlying areas, and worries that the Middle East war could push up construction costs and presale prices. Expected inflation for the next year rose 0.2 percentage points from the previous month to 2.9%, influenced by concerns about price increases tied to supply disruptions in raw materials such as crude oil. Perceived consumer inflation over the past year was unchanged at 2.9%.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-23 06:03:20