DB Securities on the 29th said DOOSAN TESNA is expected to improve earnings despite the mobile off-season, citing higher utilization rates for automotive chips and memory controllers. It maintained a "buy" (BUY) rating and raised the target price to 150,000 won from 54,000 won. The previous session's closing price was 115,700 won.
DB Securities projected that in the second quarter this year, DOOSAN TESNA's revenue and operating profit will be 80.8 billion won and 8 billion won, respectively, falling short of market expectations.
By contrast, it expected DOOSAN TESNA's second-half results to improve markedly from the first half on the back of automotive chips, memory controllers, and AI Semiconductor. In particular, it forecast that revenue from language processing unit (LPU) testing, which began in the fourth quarter last year, will be reflected in earnest.
Seo Seung-yeon, a DB Securities researcher, said, "This year, DOOSAN TESNA's revenue and operating profit will reach 335.5 billion won and 39.7 billion won, respectively," and added, "Next year, with an expanded lineup of automotive chip products and the completion of inventory adjustments for image sensors (CIS), revenue and operating profit will increase to 415.2 billion won and 78.5 billion won, up 24% and 98% from this year."
Seo projected that DOOSAN TESNA will show full-fledged top-line growth from the end of this year driven by artificial intelligence (AI) chips and new CIS and automotive chip wafer testing. However, she viewed that CIS and application processors (AP) for mobile will continue to suffer from low utilization due to weakness in the mobile market.