[Special Stock] Padoo's Profit Expected to 'Surge' from Next Year Due to Growth in Data Center SSDs

Padou, which had declined compared to the public offering price on its first day of listing, is rebounding after just one day.

As of 10:02 AM on the 8th, Padou is trading at 29,200 KRW, up 5.8% from the previous day.

Padou, which was listed on the KOSDAQ market the day before, closed at 27,600 KRW, down 10.97% from the public offering price of 31,000 KRW. The trading volume on the previous day was 3,980 KRW.

Founded in June 2015, Padou's main product is a next-generation solid-state drive (SSD) controller for data centers. As artificial intelligence (AI) technology advances, data is increasing explosively. With growing investment in data centers, it is emerging as a core sector in the semiconductor market. Demand for semiconductors used in data centers is increasing. As the number of semiconductors used in data centers grows, low-power and low-heat generation technologies are gaining attention.

Padou's next-generation SSD controller for data centers has achieved world-class levels in low power consumption, low heat generation, and reliability. Padou has proven its competitiveness by supplying controller products to global IT companies.

Padou is conducting full-scale research in all areas, including power semiconductors, communication semiconductors, computing semiconductors, and memory storage. The power semiconductor prototype has already been developed. They are also working on next-generation CXL-related semiconductors to overcome memory limitations in ultra-large AI models, network semiconductors for effective data traffic processing, as well as various computing semiconductor development projects.

Padou aims to become a ‘global comprehensive fabless company for data centers.’ The funds secured through the listing will be used as operating capital for mass production starting next year.

NH Investment & Securities, the lead underwriter for Padou's initial public offering (IPO), forecasted explosive growth for Padou in 2024 and 2025 when estimating its appropriate corporate value. They expected Padou's sales to reach 371.5 billion KRW in 2024 and 619.5 billion KRW in 2025. Operating profit was estimated at 92.9 billion KRW and 185.6 billion KRW for the same periods, respectively.

Sales are expected to increase in core products such as SSD controllers and finished SSDs, as well as in the new business sector of PMIC. They anticipate expanding market share not only in the United States, which has the largest SSD market, but also in Europe, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. The global SSD market share target for 2025 is set at 4.9%.

The market size of Padou's main product, data center SSDs, reached approximately 23 trillion KRW in 2021 based on monetary value. In terms of quantity, it was about 54 million units. With the increase in global data volume and the cloudification trend, demand for data centers is growing. As the transition from traditional storage media HDDs to SSDs continues, enterprise SSDs are growing at an average rate of about 22% in terms of capacity. It is expected to grow to a scale of 42 trillion KRW by 2025.

The amount of data generated worldwide is increasing by more than 50% annually, and over 70% of data centers still store data on HDDs. The data center SSD market is expected to continue growing rapidly.