[Click eStock] "SK Hynix, Faster-than-Expected Demand Improvement... Target Price Up"

On the 7th, BNK Investment & Securities maintained a 'Buy' rating on SK Hynix, anticipating a faster-than-expected improvement in demand conditions. The target price was raised from the previous 250,000 KRW to 310,000 KRW.

Minhee Lee, a researcher at BNK Investment & Securities, stated, "Initially, we expected mobile inventory adjustments to be completed between the end of last year and the first quarter of this year, but Chinese smartphone OEMs changed their inventory policies due to concerns over the US-China trade dispute following the Trump administration." She added, "Thanks to the Chinese government's domestic demand stimulus measures, mobile demand is expected to improve faster than anticipated in the first half of the year."

Lee also observed that strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) continues, and with delays in competitors' market entry, high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is expected to remain prosperous this year. She explained, "More than 400 large language models (LLMs) are being developed worldwide, and AI server infrastructure investment appears stronger than expected. TSMC, which raised its production plans in the second half of last year, has HBM demand this year that is twice the company's production volume. Considering M company, whose scale is only 20-30% of SK Hynix, and S company, which has not entered the NVIDIA supply chain, SK Hynix is expected to generate high profits in the HBM business again this year."