Hantoo Asset Management: "Focused Investment on No.1 Stocks in Each Semiconductor Sector is Key"

Korea Investment Trust Management Holds '2024 ACE Semiconductor Press Briefing'
CEO Bae Jae-gyu: "Semiconductor Industry Faces Major Leap... Must Invest Regardless of Fluctuations"

Korea Investment Trust Management announced on the 28th that it held the ‘2024 ACE Semiconductor Press Conference’ at the Conrad Hotel.

Bae Jae-gyu, CEO of Korea Investment Trust Management, delivering a greeting at the 2024 ACE Semiconductor Press Conference held on the 28th in Yeouido, Seoul. Photo by Yoo Hyun-seok

The ‘ACE Semiconductor Press Conference’ was organized to conduct in-depth discussions on semiconductors, which are leading the market, and to examine recent issues surrounding semiconductors such as investment directions and strategies.

Jae-kyu Bae, President of Korea Investment Trust Management, said in his opening remarks, "The semiconductor industry is about to enter another major leap forward with the advent of the AI era following Chat GPT," adding, "We are pleased to hold an event where we can gain insights into the global semiconductor industry and explore the latest trends at this important time."

He continued, "The importance of semiconductors will continue to increase, and regardless of price fluctuations, they must be included in investment portfolios."

Professor Chris Miller, author of Chip War, explained in his keynote speech, "The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) systems increasingly requires high-performance semiconductor chips," and "The semiconductor industry is led by a few companies that have built moats through years of research and development and massive capital investment."

He added, "As entry barriers rise, the concentration toward top companies becomes even more solidified," emphasizing, "To understand the semiconductor market, analysis of monopolistic companies is essential."

Speakers included Professor Seok-jun Kwon from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Polymer Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University and Sun-woo Kim, Research Fellow at Meritz Securities. Professor Kwon is a domestic semiconductor expert and author of Semiconductor Three Kingdoms. Research Fellow Kim is a renowned analyst in the semiconductor and display sectors.

Professor Kwon, the first presenter, explained the current status and outlook of the global semiconductor market. He analyzed, "China’s semiconductor industry is rapidly growing, but there are limits to sustained growth due to internal and external factors."

He emphasized, "The U.S. is restructuring the global semiconductor industry led by itself and its allies, while Japan is seeking a resurgence in semiconductor manufacturing and plans to lead next-generation technologies," adding, "In the future, the global semiconductor supply chain will require protection of advanced industrial technologies as a national strategy and multilateral cooperation due to new economic security issues."

The second presenter, Research Fellow Kim, shared the semiconductor market outlook. Kim predicted, "Due to the base effect in 2024, memory will grow significantly compared to the previous year," and "While the semiconductor market was previously driven by smartphones and PCs, mobility and industrial semiconductors will lead going forward."

He also stated, "The AI semiconductor market is expected to rapidly grow to $137 billion by 2027," and "Domestic semiconductor exports have shown a recovery trend since the second quarter of 2023, turning to growth in the fourth quarter, with growth rates expected to improve in the second half of this year compared to the same period last year."

Additionally, he indicated the growth potential of key semiconductor companies such as NVIDIA, which is reshaping the industrial landscape through hardware accelerator chip development, and SK Hynix, which has secured the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market with the success of NVIDIA’s H100.

Finally, the global semiconductor investment strategy presentation was delivered by Seung-hyun Kim, ETF Consulting Manager at Korea Investment Trust Management. Kim said, "Semiconductor investment requires product selection that reflects the rapidly changing market," adding, "The ACE Global Semiconductor TOP4 Plus SOLACTIVE ETF is a product that reflects the benefits of the AI-driven semiconductor industry and has recorded the highest return among domestic semiconductor ETFs (126.75%, excluding leverage) since November 2022."

He emphasized, "This ETF embodies the winner-takes-all principle, which is key to semiconductor market investment, by focusing investment on the top companies in each global semiconductor sector and offering diversification effects through investment in the CHIP4 alliance of four countries centered on the U.S.," adding, "As it has shown steady growth since listing, expectations for future performance are high."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.