[Market Focus] Jeju Semiconductor Rises on LPDDR Supply Shortage... Growth Expected in the AI Era

Jeju Semiconductor is showing strong performance. Expectations for increased competitiveness due to rising prices of low-power double data rate (LPDDR) 4X appear to be impacting the company's stock price.

Market research firm TrendForce has predicted that DRAM and NAND prices will continue to rise in the fourth quarter. For DRAM, a decrease in DDR4 product supply resulted in an approximately 3% supply-demand gap in the third quarter. TrendForce expects this supply shortage to continue through the fourth quarter of next year.

As of 9:36 a.m. on September 23, Jeju Semiconductor was trading at 20,050 won, up 230 won (1.16%) from the previous trading day.

Jeju Semiconductor is a leading domestic memory fabless company. Fabless companies design semiconductors without owning a fabrication plant (fab). Jeju Semiconductor's main products are memory chips for fifth-generation (5G) Internet of Things (IoT) devices. In particular, the company manufactures low-power DRAM, such as LPDDR, which is installed in products that require device-to-device connectivity, including home Wi-Fi routers, card payment terminals in restaurants, telecom relay stations, and automotive wireless communication equipment.

While major memory manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron have focused on high-capacity and high-performance memory, Jeju Semiconductor has concentrated on low-power, low-capacity, and ultra-high-speed memory products.

In the first half of this year, Jeju Semiconductor recorded standalone sales of 9.8 billion won, a 15% increase compared to the same period last year. The prolonged inventory surplus that continued after the COVID-19 pandemic began to normalize in the first half of 2025, easing the supply-demand imbalance. The company explained that the main drivers were increased sales in the automotive, 5G IoT, and mobile sectors. In addition, the company was able to maintain its price competitiveness in LPDDR4X, its core product line, due to a combination of preemptive demand from U.S. tariff effects and supply shortages caused by major suppliers reducing LPDDR4X production and shutting down production lines.

Jeju Semiconductor has optimized its main product lineup to meet customer needs and has continued to secure a stable market presence in the automotive and 5G IoT sectors. The company has also actively pursued strategies to expand its market share in the mobile sector, including mid- to low-priced products. In the second half of this year, Jeju Semiconductor plans to maintain a solid sales base in the existing 5G IoT and automotive memory markets while being mindful of external variables such as U.S. semiconductor tariffs and potential price fluctuations. The company also aims for long-term growth by continuing R&D investment in memory development for AI Edge and next-generation AIoT devices.

Alongside the development of low-power DRAM for mobile devices, Jeju Semiconductor is increasing added value by supplying the market with various NAND MCP and Nor MCP products combined with other companies' flash memory. The company also produces NAND flash-based eMMC (embedded Multi-Media Controller) products.

The importance of low-power semiconductor chips such as LPDDR is growing for the implementation of on-device AI technologies in artificial intelligence (AI) smartphones and AI home appliances. Jeju Semiconductor produces low-power, low-capacity LPDDR2 and LPDDR4X chips. With its capability to manufacture and mass-produce NAND MCP, the company is expected to benefit from the growth of LPDDR in the IoT sector driven by economic recovery and the rise of on-device AI.

In the first half of this year, Jeju Island's export performance increased by 42% compared to the same period last year, reaching an all-time high. The main contributor to Jeju's exports was semiconductors, drawing attention to Jeju Semiconductor, which produces "Jeju-made semiconductors."

Global memory companies are gradually reducing production of legacy DRAM products such as DDR4 and LPDDR4X and focusing on next-generation DDR5 and HBM. As manufacturers' demand increases, prices have surged. In July, the average monthly price of DDR4 soared by 50% within a month, resulting in the unusual phenomenon of DDR4 becoming more expensive than DDR5.