Nomura Securities: ‘Buy’ on Samsung Electronics and SK hynix; memory demand to rise through 2028

[Financial News] Japan’s Nomura Securities has issued ‘Buy’ ratings on Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. It set target prices of 670,000 won for Samsung Electronics and 4.7 million won for SK hynix.
According to financial investment industry sources on the 20th, Nomura Securities named Samsung Electronics and SK hynix stocks to watch in a global memory report it recently published. It also forecast that memory demand growth would outpace the pace of supply expansion through 2028.
Concerns have emerged that slowing revenue growth at artificial intelligence (AI) companies and the financing burden on data center operators could lead to lower capital spending. Progress in technology development by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) has also been cited as a factor weighing on investor sentiment in the semiconductor sector.
Nomura Securities said it was difficult to assess demand across the memory market based solely on the results of some AI companies. The combined revenue of OpenAI and Anthropic for the third and fourth quarters of this year was estimated to have risen about 507% from the same period a year earlier. However, Nomura Securities said growth would need to accelerate further in the fourth quarter to meet market expectations for full-year revenue.
It also expected that even if some data center operators have difficulty securing funding, the impact on overall investment in AI infrastructure would be limited. Since other operators could acquire or use existing data centers and equipment, disruptions to investment by individual operators would not lead to a contraction in the overall market, it explained.
Nomura Securities pointed to data center expansion as a factor supporting increased memory demand. It expects the scale of new data center capacity worldwide to grow from 22.3 gigawatts (GW) this year to 31.5 GW next year. As a result, demand growth is expected to continue outpacing memory supply growth, creating a favorable environment for prices.
It also forecast that semiconductor companies would have greater capacity to hold cash. The combined net cash of nine semiconductor companies, including Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, was estimated to rise from $282 billion in the second quarter of this year to about $2 trillion by the end of 2028. The analysis said that as AI-related investment increases, semiconductor suppliers’ financial positions could improve more than those of data center operators.
However, it noted that the memory demand outlook would need to be reassessed if cuts to data center investment persisted or capital spending were delayed even on projects that had already secured financing.

[email protected] Im Sang-hyeok Reporter