KB Securities said on the 23rd that SK hynix is expected to maintain its No. 1 supply share even with the possibility of Samsung Electronics entering the market. It maintained a "Buy" investment rating and raised its target price to 460,000 won, up 35% from the previous 340,000 won. The previous day's closing price of SK hynix was 351,000 won.
Kang Dahyeon, a KB Securities researcher, said, "Reflecting the strengthening dominance in the HBM market and increased earnings visibility, as well as a surge in demand for server DRAM and enterprise solid-state drives (eSSD) due to general server replacement demand, we raised this year's and next year's operating profit by 3.8% and 35.9%, respectively."
Kang added, "In particular, while the HBM market for Nvidia next year is expected to see full-fledged supply chain diversification starting with HBM4, U.S.-based Micron is estimated to be inferior in terms of HBM4 speed and production capacity," and forecast, "Even with the possibility of Samsung Electronics entering the market, SK hynix's No. 1 supply share is likely to continue."
The analyst judged that memory price increases and supply-demand improvement are expected. "Given the replacement cycle of general servers, the increase in demand for standard DRAM is highly likely to continue through the second half of next year," Kang said. "Memory demand is diversifying beyond artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, so memory price increases and supply-demand improvements are expected to follow."