Nomura significantly raises target prices for Samsung and SK Hynix, as AI-driven memory demand grows exponentially

AIMPACT News, May 18 (UTC+8): Nomura released a report saying that AI-driven demand is growing exponentially, with limited memory supply, and that memory stocks are set to see a valuation re-evaluation. The bank significantly raised its target prices for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Samsung’s target price was raised from the previous 340,000 won to 590,000 won, and SK Hynix’s target price was raised from the previous 2.34 million won to 4 million won; both were rated “Buy.” Nomura said that as AI semiconductor demand shifts from training to inference workloads, memory demand is entering a period of exponential expansion.

By contrast, the bank believes that industry supply growth during the same period may still be limited to about 5 to 6 times (a compound annual growth rate of approximately 30%), raising a serious question as to whether the structural supply shortage can truly be resolved. The bank noted that the industry is currently trying to narrow the increasingly widening supply-demand gap through various optimizations at the software and architecture levels, but Nomura believes these solutions can only slow the pace of growth rather than reverse the trend. (Source: ChainCatcher)