这家长期处于内存芯片领先地位的公司正面临一场潜在危机，因为它难以在高端人工智能半导体领域取得突破，而中国竞争对手的崛起威胁着其中端芯片领域。投资者和分析师开始质疑他们从未质疑过的东西：三星的竞争力。Samsung used to be a cyclical chip stock, and whenever its stock price seemed cheap, it attracted buyers on dips. But that is no longer the case.
The Zhitong Finance App noticed that Samsung was once a cyclical chip stock, and every time its stock price seemed cheap, it attracted buyers on dips. But that is no longer the case.
Within three months, Samsung's stock price shrunk by one-third. Currently, the net market ratio is less than double, setting a record low compared to major Asian peers since the end of 2009. That wasn't enough to attract investors.
The company, which has long been a leader in memory chips, is facing a potential crisis because it is difficult to break through in the field of high-end artificial intelligence semiconductors, and the rise of Chinese competitors threatens the midrange chip sector. Investors and analysts are beginning to question something they've never questioned: Samsung's competitiveness.
“There's too much uncertainty,” said Jinho Park, head of equity investment at NH-Amundi Asset Management. He added that if investors see Samsung as leading the pack, its stock price will rise. “At the end of the day, what matters more is whether the company is competitive.”
On Tuesday, Samsung made a rare apology to investors, saying its initial results fell short of expectations and said it was struggling to cope with delays in delivery of Nvidia's chips used to train AI. This has enabled SK Hynix to dominate the high-bandwidth memory field, while Samsung has made little progress compared to TSMC in outsourced production of custom chips.
Lee Seung-woo, an analyst at Eugene Investment Securities, wrote in a Thursday report: “The plan presented by Samsung during the last earnings call has become an unfulfilled promise, and the market capitalization gap with TSMC will only grow wider.” “This raises the question of whether the one-off non-memory factors affecting performance are actually one-off,” he added, referring to the impact of performance bonuses.
Goldman Sachs Group is one of the banks that lowered Samsung's profit expectations. The company cut Samsung's target share price by 9.5% to reflect worse predictions about DRAM and NAND chip shipments and profit margins for memory and contract chip manufacturing businesses. Analysts led by Giuni Lee wrote in a report that the company believes Samsung is unlikely to implement the guidance it gave during the July earnings call.
Although Morgan Stanley expects limited profit growth as quarterly DRAM contract prices begin to stabilize, it does see the possibility of buying on dips. Analysts led by Shawn Kim said that in the past, buying stocks when the stock price was below book value had returns of over 40% over six months in most cases.
However, for Neil Campling, the founding partner of Chameleon Global Capital, the focus of the problem was not these initial results, but the company's mistakes.
He said, “Samsung's pain is Hynix's gain,” and added that SK Hynix is making strong progress in the lucrative HBM sector, securing Nvidia's distribution in 2025.
