In a semiconductor industry report published on the 15th, SK Securities maintained its Overweight stance on the sector, arguing that the spread of artificial intelligence has structurally elevated the strategic standing of memory chips.
Han Dong-hee, analyst at SK Securities, stated: "AI is an extremely asset-heavy industry that consumes computing power, memory, and electricity with every inference cycle. Memory has become a bottleneck asset that simultaneously determines AI performance, cost, and scalability."
The report observed that, prior to the AI era, markets had assigned high valuations to asset-light businesses such as software and platform companies, whilst applying lower multiples to manufacturers including memory chipmakers — citing high fixed costs, inventory burdens, and the perennial risk of oversupply.
Han elaborated on the structural shift now under way: "Long-term supply contracts are not merely pricing agreements — they are institutional mechanisms that simultaneously reduce the risk of supply shortages for customers and capital expenditure risk for suppliers. Within this mutual-hostage structure, the earnings visibility of memory manufacturers improves structurally."
SK Securities assessed that the current share prices of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each reflect a 12-month forward price-to-earnings (PER) ratio of approximately 6.0x, describing the two companies as "still the cheapest stocks among all the bottleneck components of the AI era." By global market capitalisation, Samsung Electronics ranks 11th ($1.2471 trillion) and SK Hynix 15th ($1.027 trillion).
The report cited the premium valuation accorded to TSMC, the world's leading contract chipmaker, as stemming from its status as a "platform-style manufacturer that enables its customers' futures" — and argued that memory in the AI era deserves revaluation on precisely the same terms. Han concluded: "The journey towards a revaluation of memory is still only at its very beginning."