Goldman Sachs Raises Samsung Targets as Memory Boom Reshapes Chip Industry

Goldman Sachs has dramatically upgraded its earnings forecasts for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, calling the current environment one of the strongest memory upcycles in industry history. Fueled by surging AI infrastructure investment and deliberately restrained production expansion by memory makers, prices for both DRAM and NAND flash have entered a sharp and sustained rally — with no meaningful relief expected in the near term.

On March 11, 2026 (U.S. time), Goldman Sachs raised its 12-month target price for Samsung Electronics by approximately 27%, from 205,000 won to 260,000 won, while maintaining its “Buy” rating. More strikingly, the bank lifted its 2026 operating profit forecast for Samsung from 18.1 trillion won to 23.9 trillion won — representing more than a fivefold increase over Samsung’s 2025 operating profit of just 4.36 trillion won. Goldman also projects Samsung’s return on equity (ROE) will reach a historical high of roughly 37%.

For SK Hynix — the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker — Goldman raised its target price from 1.2 million won to 1.35 million won, and lifted its 2026 full-year operating profit forecast from 16.9 trillion won to 20.2 trillion won. The bank projected that SK Hynix would deliver DRAM operating margins in the high-70% range and NAND margins in the high-40% range, with ROE expected to exceed 80%.

The price environment underpinning these forecasts is exceptional. Goldman Sachs projects that conventional DRAM prices will surge 243% year-on-year by 2026 for SK Hynix, with NAND prices rising 164% annually for Samsung. In the first quarter alone, the bank expects sequential DRAM price increases of approximately 88% and NAND increases of 58–71% for both companies.

The root cause is structural, not cyclical. As hyperscalers and AI chip designers race to build out infrastructure for large language models and AI accelerators, demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) — a premium DRAM variant with vastly higher data throughput — has skyrocketed. HBM production requires approximately three times more wafer capacity per gigabyte than conventional DRAM, meaning that as manufacturers shift lines toward HBM for NVIDIA, AMD, and Google TPU customers, conventional memory supply tightens severely.

SK Hynix holds the strongest position in this market. The company currently commands a 62% share of HBM shipments globally and is the sole supplier of HBM3E for NVIDIA’s most advanced AI platforms. Goldman Sachs confirmed that SK Hynix is expected to maintain over 50% total HBM market share through at least 2026 and is also the first supplier of HBM3E for Google’s latest Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). Samsung, meanwhile, has made meaningful progress: Goldman projects Samsung’s HBM revenue will grow 158% year-on-year to $15 billion in 2026, aided by its first-mover launch of HBM4 and expanded market share with NVIDIA.

Beyond HBM, the squeeze extends to conventional DRAM and NAND. TrendForce projects conventional DRAM contract prices to rise 55–60% in Q1 2026, with server DRAM climbing over 60%. SK Hynix has stated that its HBM, DRAM, and NAND capacity is “essentially sold out” for 2026 and intends to rely on short-term supply contracts — a signal that pricing power remains firmly with suppliers.

The margin picture is equally striking. Goldman Sachs projects that both Samsung’s and SK Hynix’s DRAM operating margins will reach the high-70% range in 2026, while NAND margins are expected to land in the high-40% range — levels that would represent new records for the industry. As a point of comparison, TSMC — long the most profitable chip manufacturer in Asia — reported gross margins of around 60%, and Samsung and SK Hynix are expected to have surpassed that benchmark as early as Q4 2025, for the first time since 2018.

However, not every part of Samsung’s business benefits equally. Goldman Sachs cautioned that persistently high memory component costs will compress Samsung’s smartphone business margin to a projected historic low of just 4% in 2026, as the company’s own handset division faces the same input-cost pressures as any other hardware buyer.

The downstream impact on the broader technology industry is considerable. PC manufacturers, smartphone OEMs, and enterprise hardware vendors are all competing for tighter supply at higher prices. TrendForce notes that in some categories, buyers are being forced to accept smaller default memory configurations or slower product refresh cycles simply because supply at prior pricing no longer exists. For the memory giants, the equation is the inverse: rising ASPs with controlled supply growth equate directly to record margins.

Despite record profitability, neither company is flooding the market with new supply. Goldman Sachs raised its forecast for Samsung’s memory-related capital expenditure in 2026 to 46 trillion won, and SK Hynix’s to 40 trillion won — but emphasized that most of this spending is directed toward infrastructure preparation for next-generation HBM and advanced process nodes, not toward near-term conventional memory capacity expansion. As a result, meaningful new supply is unlikely to reach the market in the short term.

SK Hynix confirmed it plans to invest around 30% of its revenue in capital expenditure in 2026 and will accelerate its transition to 1c DRAM — but acknowledged this will not be sufficient to ease current shortages. Goldman Sachs noted that industry capital expenditure will be heavily weighted toward high-margin DRAM and HBM, structurally reinforcing supply tightness for the remainder of 2026 and potentially beyond.

Despite these exceptional forecasts, Goldman Sachs argued that both stocks remain attractively valued. SK Hynix trades at just 4.5 times next year’s projected earnings and 1.7 times book value — relatively modest multiples given the scale of the earnings upgrade. Goldman also flagged the potential for SK Hynix to pursue a New York Stock Exchange listing via American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), which could further raise the company’s international profile among institutional investors.