[Market Insight] "AI Will Lead as a Super Mega Theme in 2024... Connected with Various Industries"

Kim Doohyun, Head of Future Industry Team at Hana Securities
"Focus on AI-related stocks with visible earnings"

"Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a global 'super mega theme,' so it is expected to lead this year. In particular, it is highly likely to move together with all industries related to AI."

Kim Doohyun, Head of Future Industry Team at Hana Securities. / Photo by Jang Hyowon

Kim Doohyun, head of the Future Industry Team at Hana Securities, identified AI as the leading sector that will drive the market this year. He expects a market environment where multiple industries revolve around AI and attract attention. Especially, he emphasized the need to focus on companies that can prove their performance starting this year.

Growth Stocks Rally Led by the 'Super Mega Theme AI'

Kim Doohyun commented on the recent KOSDAQ market, saying, "While advanced markets such as the U.S. and Japan have been showing continuous strength, the KOSDAQ index has not risen much. It is certainly an attractive valuation zone, and since the economy was weak last year, a base effect is expected."

From a macro perspective, the environment is also favorable for the KOSDAQ market. Recently, the won-dollar exchange rate broke through the 1,340 won level, continuing the won's weakness trend. Since many export companies are listed on KOSDAQ, they can benefit from the exchange rate effect when the won is weak. Additionally, the political situation from the general election in April to the presidential election next year is expected to bring favorable government stock market stimulus measures, which is positive.

Amid expectations of a favorable breeze for the KOSDAQ market, Kim highlighted AI as the theme to watch this year. He said, "The recent surge of Nvidia in the U.S. and the rise of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) related stocks are thanks to the AI industry. Future new technologies such as robots and autonomous driving will also develop based on AI industry growth, so past themes will be tied to the mega theme AI and move together."

He particularly noted that the AI industry is still in its early stages and has plenty of room to grow. He forecasted, "AI is currently expanding its scale by entering the industrial AI market, and in the future, it will spread to household AI used in daily life, so it will continue as a main theme."

Focus on AI Stocks with Earnings and Scalability

Kim Doohyun of the Future Industry Team first pointed to Deepnoid as an AI-related stock to watch this year. Deepnoid is a company engaged in AI solutions for medical diagnosis and interpretation, and it was a highly noticed stock last year.

He explained, "Deepnoid is the only domestic company capable of designing AI systems not only for medical AI but also for industrial and security monitoring AI systems, so it is now appropriate to view it as a company with an 'AI platform.' In fact, last year, it began designing an AI inspection system for SK On's secondary battery post-processing, and achieved results by designing AI systems for the Presidential Security Service, domestic and Uzbekistan airports, etc., so sales of 20 billion won are expected this year." He added that considering Deepnoid recorded sales of 1.5 billion won last year, explosive growth is anticipated this year.

CrowdWorks was also introduced as a promising stock. CrowdWorks is an 'intelligent AI data platform' company based on big data and AI infrastructure. It provides AI data construction services covering all stages from data collection to refinement and labeling. It was listed on the KOSDAQ market in August last year.

He said, "CrowdWorks has a platform capable of building 'small large language models (LLM)' needed by companies that cannot use HyperCloverX, Lama, ChatGPT, etc., due to cost burdens. In the first half of last year, it received proof of concept (PoC) requests from seven companies, and by the end of last year, this increased to 70 companies." Accordingly, sales growth is expected this year, but it is still considered undervalued.

Meanwhile, the Future Industry Team led by Kim Doohyun at Hana Securities is a strong team with the largest number of analysts and coverage companies in the small-cap sector of the securities industry. Last year, they focused intensively on the robotics sector, discovering companies such as TiRobotics and SPG, achieving good results.