Samsung Electronics announced on the 7th that it recorded 133 trillion won in revenue and 57.2 trillion won in operating profit for the first quarter of this year. Market attention is shifting towards the stock price outlook. [Photo=Yonhap News]

Stock Price Remains a Calculation Despite 57.2 Trillion Won Profit… The Market is Asking "How Many Multiples?"

PBR is the Main Metric Over PER… 12-Month Fair Value Between 225,000 and 279,000 Won

The Lower End is Supported by Equity, the Upper End by Industry Conditions… The Midpoint is 240,000 Won

At this juncture, the most important question regarding Samsung Electronics' stock price is not "Is it a good company?" The market has known that fact for a long time. What's needed now is a different question: At what multiple should Samsung Electronics be valued during a period of surging profits?

Samsung Electronics has provided preliminary guidance for the first quarter of 2026, projecting revenue of 133 trillion won and operating profit of 57.2 trillion won.

Reuters interpreted this as a result driven by increased demand for memory for AI data centers and rising semiconductor prices, assessing it as significantly surpassing previous quarterly operating profit records.

On the morning of April 7th, Samsung Electronics' stock price rose to around 196,500 won intraday, outperforming the KOSPI's rise.

The problem starts here.

Even with explosive earnings, it's difficult to judge a stock price solely by PER. For companies like Samsung Electronics with high profit volatility depending on the memory industry cycle, PER can become excessively high during downturns and excessively low during upturns, easily distorting the numbers.

Therefore, in this phase, it is more natural to consider PBR as the primary metric over PER. This approach sets the lower bound based on equity value and applies a target multiple based on the extent of industry recovery.

The background for this judgment is the industry conditions themselves.

According to Reuters, Samsung Electronics is directly benefiting from the memory industry super-cycle this year. The surge in first-quarter earnings was attributed to soaring DRAM prices and increased AI infrastructure investment, with expectations that memory price strength will continue into the second quarter.

However, at the same time, rising energy costs due to the Middle East conflict, supply chain variables, and concerns about an industry peak-out remain factors suppressing the upper limit.

In other words, Samsung Electronics' stock price is currently in a phase where both explosive earnings and the impact of pre-reflected valuations are operating simultaneously.

Therefore, it is more appropriate to view the fair value as a range rather than a single number.

In this article, a conservative range-based calculation was applied, assuming an estimated BPS for 2026 of around 90,000 won and target PBR multiples of 2.5 to 3.0 times.

Under this scenario, the conservative estimate is 225,000 won, the base scenario is 243,000 won, and the optimistic scenario is 279,159 won. In other words, Samsung Electronics' 12-month fair value range can be summarized as 225,000 to 279,000 won, with a midpoint of around 240,000 won.

This is not a stock with a completely open-ended downside.

Samsung Electronics recorded 424.3133 trillion won in attributable equity as of the end of 2025, and based on this, a simple trailing BPS calculation yields approximately 63,000 won. This level of equity serves as a buffer for the stock price's lower bound.

However, the upside is not automatically guaranteed. If the memory price strength continues longer than expected and HBM competitiveness is confirmed as actual revenue, the market may allow for higher multiples. Conversely, if the industry peak debate intensifies, a valuation of around PBR 3 times could easily be compressed.

Ultimately, Samsung Electronics' stock price issue has moved beyond "Is it a good company?" to "At what multiple will the market value a good company?"

The most realistic outlook now is neither optimistic nor pessimistic.

It is a range-based judgment, centering on 240,000 won, with the lower end in the 220,000 won range and the upper end in the 270,000-280,000 won range. The earnings have already been proven. What remains is how much of a price tag the market will attach to those earnings.