Odaily Planet Daily reports that Nomura issued a report stating that demand driven by artificial intelligence is growing exponentially, while memory supply remains limited, suggesting a potential valuation reassessment for memory stocks. The firm significantly raised its target prices for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, increasing Samsung’s target price from KRW 340,000 to KRW 590,000 and SK Hynix’s target price from KRW 2.34 million to KRW 4 million, maintaining a “Buy” rating for both. Nomura noted that as AI semiconductor demand shifts from training to inference workloads, memory demand is entering a period of exponential expansion.
In contrast, the bank believes that industry supply growth during the same period may still be limited to approximately 5 to 6 times (an annual compound growth rate of around 30%), raising serious questions about whether the structural supply-demand imbalance can truly be resolved. The bank notes that the industry is currently attempting to narrow this growing supply-demand gap through various software and architectural optimizations, but Nomura believes these solutions can only slow the pace of growth, not reverse the trend. (Goldten)