Nomura significantly raises target prices for Samsung and SK Hynix, driven by AI, leading to exponential growth in memory demand

Nomura published a report indicating that AI-driven demand is growing exponentially, while memory supply is limited, suggesting that memory stocks are set for a valuation reassessment. The firm significantly raised the target prices for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, with Samsung's target price soaring from 340,000 KRW to 590,000 KRW, and SK Hynix's target price rising from 2,340,000 KRW to 4,000,000 KRW, both rated as "Buy." Nomura stated that as AI semiconductor demand shifts from training to inference workloads, memory demand is entering a period of exponential expansion.

In contrast, the firm believes that industry supply growth during the same period may still be constrained to about 5 to 6 times (with a compound annual growth rate of about 30%), raising serious questions about whether the structural supply-demand imbalance can truly be resolved. The firm mentioned that currently, the industry is attempting to narrow this widening supply-demand gap through various software and architectural optimizations, but Nomura believes these solutions can only slow the growth rate rather than reverse the trend.