On the 15th, IBK Investment & Securities significantly raised its target price for SK Hynix from 1.1 million won to 1.8 million won, citing market sentiment that the expanding demand for artificial intelligence is further boosting expectations for memory semiconductor performance. The brokerage firm's forecast reflects not only demand for AI server memory, represented by high-bandwidth memory (HBM), but also expectations of improved supply and demand in the general-purpose DRAM market.
IBK Investment & Securities maintained its "buy" rating on SK Hynix on the same day, predicting that its Q1 2026 sales would increase by 51.9% quarter-on-quarter to 49.887 trillion won. This figure is higher than previously expected. Researcher Kim Yoon-ho stated that the earnings forecasts for DRAM and NAND have been significantly raised, primarily due to a higher-than-expected increase in the average selling price (ASP). Specifically, DRAM sales are projected to increase by 52.6% quarter-on-quarter, and NAND sales by 51.4%.
Profit expectations have also improved further. IBK Investment & Securities projects SK Hynix's operating profit for the first quarter of 2026 to reach 38.46 trillion won, approximately double that of the previous quarter. The semiconductor industry is characterized by a structural feature where even with the same quantity of products sold, price increases can lead to rapid profit growth, a characteristic reflected in this upward revision of expectations. While memory semiconductors are highly susceptible to industry fluctuations, recent demand for high-performance memory related to artificial intelligence is driving overall market price trends.
This upward revision of the target price does not solely reflect short-term performance improvements. Researcher Kim anticipates continued growth in the AI-driven memory market in 2026, with SK Hynix expected to achieve differentiated performance in both DRAM and NAND flash memory. He also believes this trend may persist for a considerable period and assesses the current share price as undervalued relative to its earnings. The target price was calculated using a price-to-book ratio (PBR) of 4.0 times the projected 2026 net asset value per share (BPS) of 448,465 KRW. The PBR is an indicator showing the relative level of a company's net assets to its share price, and is commonly used by securities firms to calculate a fair value for the stock.
The market believes that whether investment in AI servers will continue to expand, and whether the expected recovery in demand and supply shortages for general-purpose DRAM can actually translate into price increases, will be key variables determining whether SK Hynix's stock price can rise further. While this trend may support overall investment sentiment in the memory industry in the short term, given the strong cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry, the extent to which actual performance meets expectations will become the benchmark for subsequent evaluation.
