Kyobo Securities said Tuesday that the strength and durability of the memory upcycle have been confirmed, raising its target price for Samsung Electronics to 330,000 won from 220,000 won, a 50% increase. It maintained its “buy” rating.
Choi Bo-young, an analyst at Kyobo Securities, said the key investment point is “visibility and sustainability,” not just the absolute size of profits. “Expanding long-term supply contracts and the full-scale rollout of HBM4 are structural changes that strengthen both variables at the same time,” Choi said.
Samsung Electronics posted first-quarter revenue of 133.9 trillion won, up 69% from a year earlier, and operating profit of 57.2 trillion won, up 756%, marking a record quarterly result.
Operating profit in the DS division came to 53.7 trillion won, leading companywide performance. Profitability in memory improved sharply as DRAM and NAND flash prices rose 91% and 89%, respectively. By contrast, non-memory and set businesses faced growing pressure from higher component costs.
Kyobo Securities expects the improvement to continue in the second quarter, forecasting revenue of 158 trillion won and operating profit of 81 trillion won. It said a supply-tight market across memory is likely to persist as HBM demand rises with expanded investment in AI data centers, alongside stronger demand for server DDR5 and mobile LPDDR5X.
It also projected faster product-mix improvement as shipments of 12-high HBM4 ramp up and gains from process transitions take hold. For NAND, it expects the company to sustain a record quarterly revenue trend on rising demand for data center eSSDs.
Kyobo Securities forecast Samsung Electronics’ full-year 2026 revenue at 670 trillion won and operating profit at 339 trillion won, above the market consensus. It said some risks remain, including a union strike and weakness in non-memory, but expects the strong memory cycle to offset them, limiting the overall impact.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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