[Click eStock] "Samsung Electronics Q1 Earnings Expected to Exceed Forecast"

On the 3rd, KB Securities maintained its buy rating and target price of 82,000 KRW for Samsung Electronics. Dongwon Kim, a researcher at KB Securities, stated, "We estimate Samsung Electronics' operating profit for the first quarter to be 5.8 trillion KRW, which is 13.3% higher than the market consensus forecast of 5.1 trillion KRW."

He expected that all business divisions except CE (Consumer Electronics) would exceed performance expectations. It is anticipated that the profit growth trend will continue from the first quarter low point through the fourth quarter. The estimated operating profits by division for the first quarter are DS (Device Solutions) 700 billion KRW, MX (Mobile Experience) 3.9 trillion KRW, DP (Display) 500 billion KRW, CE 400 billion KRW, and Harman 300 billion KRW.

Researcher Kim said, "With the inventory adjustments of smartphone and PC manufacturers completed, purchasing demand for general-purpose memory is expected to arise from the second quarter, leading to price increases for DRAM and NAND," and "after the sample certification of HBM3E (5th generation high bandwidth memory) 12-layer in the second quarter, supply is expected to begin from the third quarter, improving the DRAM product mix in the second half of the year. Regarding the foundry business, after production line efficiency improvements in the first half, operating rates centered on legacy processes are expected to rise from the second half, reducing losses."

In particular, memory demand is expected to exceed supply in 2025?2026. Researcher Kim said, "Due to production capacity reductions from DRAM and NAND process transitions, the natural production cut effect is expected to increase," adding, "This is because the production growth rates for DRAM and NAND this year are projected to be around 10% and 5%, respectively, while demand growth is expected to exceed 15%."

He also added, "This year, the expansion of iPhone 17 memory (from 8GB to 12GB) and the replacement of enterprise PCs based on Windows 11 following the end of Windows 10 updates are expected to act as catalysts for future memory demand."

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