Market: KOSPI (000660)
Brokerage : SK Securities
Analyst : Donghee Han
Investment Rating : BUY (Maintained)
Target Price : 1,600,000 KRW (Upgraded)
Core Momentum : AI memory demand is expanding beyond HBM into DRAM and NAND, with inference-driven memory tiering creating a new role for NAND while multi-dimensional supply constraints strengthen pricing power, earnings visibility, and the case for structural re-rating.
📊 1. [Valuation & Key Financial Metrics]
- Target Price / Investment Rating: 1,600,000 KRW / BUY (Maintain)
- Current Price (as of 2/23/26): 951,000 KRW (Upside potential: 68.2%)
- Market Capitalization: 677,780 billion KRW (Foreign ownership: 54.62%)
- Key Financial Metrics (2025E / 2026E / 2027E):
- Revenue: 97,147 billion KRW / 244,100 billion KRW / 280,715 billion KRW
- Operating Profit: 47,207 billion KRW / 175,828 billion KRW / 192,233 billion KRW
- Net Income (Controlling): 43,543 billion KRW / 128,367 billion KRW / 152,757 billion KRW
- EPS: 59,811 KRW / 180,113 KRW / 214,335 KRW
- PER: 10.9x / 5.3x / 4.4x
- PBR: 4.0x / 2.8x / 1.7x
- EV/EBITDA: 7.6x / 3.1x / 2.1x
- ROE: 46.0% / 71.8% / 48.2%
- Dividend Payout Ratio: 4.8% / 1.6% / 1.4%
🚀 2. [Market Opportunities & Business Outlook]
- Shifting Memory Paradigms: AI demand is spreading from HBM to encompass both DRAM and NAND as a whole, demanding complex characteristics such as capacity, bandwidth, and p99 latency. With intensifying supply shortages, constraints have become multi-dimensional—entangling production mix, advanced packaging, and sorting beyond simple wafer capacity.
- NAND’s Expansion into AI Memory: Driven by the advancement of AI inference, increasing KV cache requirements demand memory tiering, leading to NAND’s role being reorganized into a storage tier capable of holding inference states (with NVIDIA’s ICMS marking the first case).
- Upward Revision of Earnings Projections: SK Securities has raised its 2026 price forecasts to +108% YoY for DRAM and +106% YoY for NAND, projecting full-year 2026 operating profit at 175.8 trillion KRW (+272% YoY) with an operating profit margin of 72%. Low supplier inventories, structural demand for AI memory, and capacity constraints are driving pricing power beyond expectations.
- The Case for Re-rating Korean Memory: The traditional economic cycle has transformed into an AI macro cycle, shifting the baseline of memory earnings power upwards. Long-term supply contracts materializing within the first half of the year will further bolster earnings visibility. This is the first memory boom accompanied by liquidity expansion, and Korean memory remains an attractively priced option among global AI peers.
📝 Editor’s Comment (Perspective)
The analyst evaluates that as AI adoption broadens from HBM into wider DRAM and NAND applications, structural changes are emerging across the memory industry. With multi-layered supply bottlenecks intensifying and NAND expanding into a storage tier for AI inference, earnings visibility has improved—supported by a projected 176 trillion KRW operating profit for 2026—thereby highlighting the necessity of re-rating Korean memory equities.
To determine whether this investment thesis is unfolding as projected, key items to monitor include the visibility of long-term supply contracts within the first half, the sustainability of price hikes across DRAM and NAND, and the expansion rate of NAND demand driven by advanced AI inference architectures. These developments can be tracked through upcoming quarterly and annual earnings releases, official corporate IR materials, and regulatory disclosures via DART/KRX.
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