LG Innotek rose more than 6% in early trading on the 28th. Following the previous day's first-quarter strong results announcement, buying appears to be pouring in as the securities industry on this day projected continued strong results.
As of 9:25 a.m. on this day, LG Innotek was trading at 569,000 won on the Korea Exchange, up 33,000 won (6.16%) from the previous session. It climbed to as high as 592,000 won in early trading, hitting a 1-year high.
LG Innotek said the previous day that its preliminary first-quarter revenue came to 5.5348 trillion won and operating profit to 295.3 billion won. Operating profit jumped 136% from a year earlier, and revenue also increased 11.1% over the same period. First-quarter revenue was the highest on record.
LG Innotek explained that this was the result of steady demand for mobile camera modules and strong supply of high value-added semiconductor substrates, even in a seasonal off-peak period.
The securities industry offered a positive outlook for LG Innotek.
KB Securities raised its target price for LG Innotek to 750,000 won from 350,000 won. Among the 17 brokerages that issued reports on LG Innotek on this day, it set the highest target price.
Kim Dong-Won, head of research at KB Securities, said, "For LG Innotek, expansion of semiconductor substrate supply is expected, centered on Intel CPU chipsets, to Amazon's low-earth-orbit satellites and to humanoid robots from Boston Dynamics and Figure AI," and added, "As it has also begun actual development of CPO (Co-Packaged Optics) substrates, a next-generation optical communication packaging technology, full-fledged commercialization is expected going forward, which will act as a factor for mid- to long-term valuation reassessment."
In particular, despite the off-peak season, it estimated that second-quarter operating profit will reach 125.1 billion won, up 998% from a year earlier, as mobile demand from a North American client continues to outpace expectations. It projected that sales of high value-added semiconductor substrates will surge more than tenfold in three years, from 40 billion won last year to around 400 billion won in 2028.