[Click eStock] "Kia, Humanoid and Smart Car Momentum... Target Price Raised to 220,000 Won"

On January 16, Meritz Securities analyzed that Kia has the potential for a corporate value re-evaluation. Accordingly, the company raised its target stock price to 220,000 won.

Kim Junseong, a researcher at Meritz Securities, stated, "Throughout this year, the disclosure of core smart car development technologies, partnership announcements, demo car distribution and the commencement of data collection and training, as well as the sharing of mass production schedules, will prove the technological gap with legacy OEMs." He added, "By applying the price-to-earnings ratio (PER) of 10.7 times, which is the highest among legacy OEMs and currently held by Toyota, to our 2026 earnings per share (EPS) estimate, we are raising our target stock price to 220,000 won."

Of particular note is Hyundai Motor Group's strategy surrounding humanoid robots and the transition to smart factories. Kim emphasized, "All robots require intelligence. Developing intelligence to a marketable level is only possible through the collection and training of large-scale real-world, real data." He analyzed, "This is why humanoid development startups request SDF cooperation from external manufacturers or sell incomplete products to consumers at low prices, despite incurring losses-ultimately, to secure data."

Hyundai Motor Group's strength lies precisely in this data pipeline. Kim noted, "Hyundai Motor Group is different from startups," and explained, "Like Tesla (Optimus) and Xpeng (Iron), it can introduce large numbers of Atlas units and collect and train data by converting its own manufacturing bases to SDF." He added, "Based on these strengths, the group is not only launching RMAC (Robot AI Factory) operations in October, but is also accelerating strategic collaborations with Google DeepMind and NVIDIA, demonstrating a differentiated approach."

He also predicted that the criteria for evaluating the value of humanoid companies will change in the future. Kim said, "Going forward, the valuation of humanoid companies will depend on whether they have secured pipelines for data collection and training," and projected, "Once the deployment of Atlas SDF is confirmed in the second half of this year, the market value of Boston Dynamics could far surpass 60 trillion won, which is currently the highest valuation recognized among startups for Figure AI."

The increase in Boston Dynamics' value is highly likely to lead to a further re-evaluation of Kia's corporate value. Currently, Hyundai Motor, Kia, and Hyundai Mobis hold shares in HMG Global, the largest shareholder of Boston Dynamics, in a ratio of 5:3:2. When converted to direct ownership stakes, this corresponds to approximately 28%, 17%, and 11%, respectively.