SEOUL, Jan 26, 2026, 00:12 KST — Market closed.
- Samsung Electronics closed Friday 0.13% lower, finishing at 152,100 won.
- A new round of broker target upgrades has pushed the shares back toward 200,000 won.
- Samsung’s earnings call on Jan. 29 will be the next key market event, with investors eager for more clarity on its early guidance.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (005930.KS) ended Friday down 0.13%, closing at 152,100 won after trading between 150,100 and 156,000 won during the session. The share price remains roughly 3% shy of its 52-week peak at 157,000 won. 1
As the Seoul market remains closed before Monday’s open, all eyes are on Samsung’s Q4 earnings call set for Jan. 29. This will be crucial to see if the January rally is justified. Investors are hungry for specifics—what’s fueling the chip segment, what’s dragging, and how demand might shape up in Q1. 2
Kiwoom Securities raised its target price for Samsung from 170,000 won to 200,000 won in a report dated Jan. 23, citing higher memory-chip prices. “We are revising our earnings estimates upward to reflect the surge in memory prices,” said Kiwoom researcher Park Yu-ak. 3
The market is moving quickly on chip earnings. The Kospi closed at 4,990.07 on Jan. 23, after briefly topping 5,000 in intraday trading the day before. Brokers are scrambling to raise targets for major index players like Samsung. “The repeated upward revisions in earnings expectations for the top two chipmakers are directly driving changes in this year’s Kospi outlook,” said Kim Yong-gu, an analyst at Yuanta Securities. 4
Samsung’s stock hinges on DRAM and NAND — the key memory chips that largely dictate semiconductor pricing. If those prices hold steady, the chip division can carry more weight, despite fluctuations in consumer electronics.
Samsung gave a rough preview of the quarter on Jan. 8, projecting fourth-quarter sales around 93 trillion won and operating profit near 20 trillion won under Korean accounting standards. The company plans to release detailed figures later this month. 5
Samsung announced earlier this month it plans to buy back 2.5 trillion won of its own shares on the open market from Jan. 8 to April 7. The repurchased stock will be used for employee and executive compensation. 6
Traders head into the week faced with a familiar dilemma: how much of the memory upcycle is already baked in? Friday’s wide intraday swings hint at conviction, yet the mood remains unsettled.
Yet this trade is fragile. Should management dial back its forecasts on pricing or demand, or if the business breakdown reveals margins below what brokers currently expect, the stock could quickly retreat after a month of raised targets.
Trading picks up again Monday, with positions expected to pile up ahead of Jan. 29. For Samsung investors, that’s the next clear catalyst, and the fastest test to see if the 200,000-won target is realistic—or just hype.
