KB Securities on the 9th projected that Samsung Electronics' operating profit in 2026 will exceed 145 trillion won. It maintained its investment recommendation of "Buy" and raised its target price to 200,000 won from 180,000 won. The previous trading day's closing price of Samsung Electronics was 138,800 won.
Kim Dong-Won, head of research at KB Securities, said, "Samsung Electronics' operating profit in 2026 is estimated at 145 trillion won, up 233% from a year earlier," and noted, "Rising DRAM and NAND prices will drive the earnings improvement." KB Securities expects DRAM and NAND prices this year to rise 87% and 57%, respectively, from a year earlier.
Accordingly, operating profit in the memory semiconductor (DRAM and NAND) institutional sector in 2026 is expected to surge 324% from a year earlier to 133 trillion won. In particular, DRAM operating profit is projected at 108 trillion won, up about fourfold (268%) from a year earlier, accounting for 81% of total memory operating profit.
High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) growth was also cited as a key factor in the earnings recovery. Kim expected shipments of HBM4 to Nvidia to ramp up in the second quarter of 2026. As a result, Samsung Electronics' HBM shipments in 2026 are forecast to reach 11.2 billion Gb, three times the previous year, and its global HBM market share is projected to more than double from 16% in 2025 to 35% in 2026.
Kim said, "Samsung Electronics is focusing its transition to advanced processes and expansion of new production capacity on growing demand for AI servers and HBM," and analyzed, "Memory shortages for LPDDR, GDDR, and eSSD are highly likely to continue in the second half." Accordingly, KB Securities, reflecting higher DRAM and NAND prices, also raised its 2027 operating profit forecast by 14% from the previous estimate to 165 trillion won.
Meanwhile, regarding fourth-quarter results, it explained, "Samsung Electronics' operating profit in the fourth quarter of last year rose 209% from a year earlier to 20 trillion won, and the adjusted operating profit reflecting semiconductor performance bonuses is estimated at 21 trillion to 23 trillion won." In particular, fourth-quarter operating profit in the semiconductor (DS) institutional sector is projected to reach 16.2 trillion won, driven by quarter-on-quarter price increases in DRAM (41%) and NAND (25%).
Based on preliminary results for the fourth quarter of last year, Samsung Electronics posted consolidated revenue of 93 trillion won and operating profit of 20 trillion won. This is the first time quarterly operating profit has exceeded 20 trillion won. It surpassed the previous record high set in the third quarter of 2018 (17.57 trillion won) by about 14%, setting a new quarterly operating profit record high for the first time in 7 years and 4 months.