Samsung Electro-Mechanics' stock chart is a shock at first glance. At the Sept. 22 close of KRW 1,486,000, it trades at about 114 times earnings (P\/E) and about 10.4 times book value (P\/B). As recently as the end of 2025, those figures were 26.7x and 1.9x.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In less than a year, the market has started pricing Samsung Electro-Mechanics as a completely different company. On current earnings alone, it is clearly expensive. What buyers are looking at, though, is not this year's profit but the parts shortage that AI data centers will create in 2027-2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A P\/E of 114 means that if profits stayed where they are, it would take 114 years to earn back your investment. That is very high for an electronic-parts maker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Comparing it with rivals makes the gap clearer. Japan's Murata, the world's No. 1 MLCC maker, trades at about 53x earnings and 5.1x book, and TDK at about 23x and 2.3x. This is not a case of \"parts stocks are always expensive.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The one to watch is Japan's Ibiden, which competes head-on with Samsung Electro-Mechanics in AI server substrates. Ibiden is also valued at about 84x earnings and 9.4x book. So this is less about one company overheating and more about the market repricing every part that goes into an AI server as a different industry from traditional electronic components.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Divide the same share price by the profits expected ahead, and the P\/E drops sharply. Using the market's earnings forecast, the forward P\/E is about 45x.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brokers look even further ahead. Daol Investment & Securities expects Samsung Electro-Mechanics' operating profit to set a new record every year, rising from KRW 1.7 trillion this year to KRW 3.6 trillion in 2027 and KRW 5.1 trillion in 2028. In late July, iM Securities calculated that the share price at the time equaled 20x 2027 earnings and 14x 2028 earnings, similar to or below the company's 10-year average P\/E of about 19x.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those numbers do not come from the stock getting cheaper. They come from the assumption that profits will multiply. The start is already visible: second-quarter 2026 revenue rose 24% from a year earlier to KRW 3.4572 trillion, and operating profit jumped 107% to KRW 440.4 billion. Third-quarter operating profit is expected at around KRW 600 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The catch is that this pace has to hold through 2027 and 2028 to justify today's price. So where will the profit growth come from? Two parts: MLCCs and FCBGAs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An MLCC is a rice-grain-sized part that briefly stores electricity and releases just enough to keep a circuit stable. Smartphones and cars use them too, but AI servers use them on a different scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Samsung Electro-Mechanics, an AI server holds more than 10 times as many MLCCs as a regular server, and a single server rack needs up to about 600,000. Because they must survive high heat and high voltage 24 hours a day, they are also harder to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goldman Sachs expects the market for AI server MLCCs to grow from $1.4 billion in 2025 to $5.8 billion in 2030, about 34% a year. Samsung Electro-Mechanics says it already holds more than 40% of this market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An FCBGA is the substrate that connects an AI chip to a server's main board. No matter how good a chip Nvidia or AMD designs, it cannot work without this substrate carrying its signals and power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As chip performance rises, the substrate gets larger and more complex. A server FCBGA is more than 4 times the area of a regular PC one and has 20 or more layers, over twice as many. That is why few companies can make them. The main competitors include Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Japan's Ibiden and Shinko Electric, and Taiwan's Unimicron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brokers expect the server share of Samsung Electro-Mechanics' FCBGA sales to rise from about 60% this year to close to 70% in 2027. When pricier products make up more of the mix, profit grows even if volume stays the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The strongest reason the market is paying up is that orders are already in. In September, Samsung Electro-Mechanics signed a KRW 1.0722 trillion contract with a global customer to supply AI server MLCCs in 2027. Including the June and July contracts, it has secured about KRW 1.8 trillion in contracts for 2027 supply. It has long-term supply agreements like these with about 10 global customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, Big Tech is already lining up to lock in parts it will use next year. Investors are not betting on a vague hope that \"AI will do well.\" They are betting on that line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AI being important and the stock being cheap are two different things. A P\/E of 114 also means that much of the good news ahead is already priced in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So if AI data center spending slows, the MLCC shortage eases, price hikes come in weak, or rivals ramp up substrate output quickly, the stock can fall before earnings do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Broker price targets are far apart, too: KRW 1.75 million at IBK Investment & Securities, KRW 2 million at DB Securities, KRW 2.8 million at Daol Investment & Securities and KRW 3 million at Hana Securities. The highest is 1.7 times the lowest. Even the experts disagree sharply on how much of the future to pay for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The real question about Samsung Electro-Mechanics is not \"Is 114x expensive?\" but \"Will profits really grow two- to threefold?\" The answer will show up in three numbers before it shows up in the stock price: whether AI server MLCC prices keep rising, whether the server share of substrates reaches 70%, and whether the KRW 1.8 trillion in supply contracts keeps growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If those three numbers rise, profits catch up with the stock and the P\/E comes down on its own. If the numbers stall while the stock keeps climbing, a P\/E of 114 is no longer the price of growth. It is the sign of a bubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Samsung Electro-Mechanics is in the spotlight not because it builds flashy AI, but because it holds small parts that are needed in greater numbers, and get harder to make, as AI chips get more powerful. The surprise winners of the AI era may be not the companies that build AI, but the ones making the parts AI cannot run without.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources Glossary<\/strong> PER 114\ubc30, \uc9c0\uae08 \uc2e4\uc801\ub9cc \ubcf4\uba74 \ubd84\uba85 \ube44\uc309\ub2c8\ub2e4. \uadf8\ub7f0\ub370\ub3c4 \uc0ac\ub294 \uc0ac\ub78c\ub4e4\uc774 \ubcf4\uace0 \uc788\ub294 \uac83\uc740 \uc62c\ud574 \uc774\uc775\uc774 \uc544\ub2c8\ub77c, AI \ub370\uc774\ud130\uc13c\ud130\uac00 \ub9cc\ub4e4\uc5b4\ub0bc 2027~2028\ub144\uc758 \ubd80\ud488 \ubd80\uc871\uc785\ub2c8\ub2e4.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"bitpress_en_title":"","bitpress_en_desc":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[223],"tags":[567,843,848,842,841,844,755,845,847,840,846],"class_list":["post-1976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-korea-stocks","tag-ai","tag-fcbga","tag-mlcc","tag-pbr","tag-per","tag-845","tag-847","tag-840","tag-846"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
https:\/\/www.newsis.com\/view\/NISX20260730_0003729801<\/a>
https:\/\/edaily.co.kr\/News\/Read?mediaCodeNo=257&newsId=03309526645575856<\/a>
https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.kr\/article\/260062<\/a>
https:\/\/www.pointe.co.kr\/news\/articleView.html?idxno=81188<\/a>
https:\/\/stockanalysis.com\/quote\/krx\/009150\/statistics\/<\/a>
https:\/\/stockanalysis.com\/quote\/krx\/009150\/financials\/ratios\/<\/a>
https:\/\/stockanalysis.com\/quote\/tyo\/6981\/statistics\/<\/a>
https:\/\/stockanalysis.com\/quote\/tyo\/6762\/statistics\/<\/a>
https:\/\/stockanalysis.com\/quote\/tyo\/4062\/statistics\/<\/a>
https:\/\/m.samsungsem.com\/kr\/newsroom\/news\/view.do?id=8381<\/a>
https:\/\/www.asiae.co.kr\/article\/2023092017163238344<\/a>
https:\/\/www.etoday.co.kr\/news\/view\/2620228<\/a>
https:\/\/www.mt.co.kr\/stock\/2026\/09\/01\/2026090108015376837<\/a>
https:\/\/www.g-enews.com\/article\/Securities\/2026\/09\/20260902081843127144093b5d4e_1<\/a>
https:\/\/www.etoday.co.kr\/news\/view\/2600415<\/a>
https:\/\/www.mt.co.kr\/stock\/2026\/09\/02\/2026090207543662423<\/a>
https:\/\/www.sedaily.com\/article\/20069384<\/a>
https:\/\/www.etoday.co.kr\/news\/view\/2612986<\/a>
https:\/\/v.daum.net\/v\/20260731074107880<\/a>
https:\/\/news.jkn.co.kr\/post\/993494<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
PER<\/strong> \u2014 Share price divided by earnings per share. It shows how many years it would take to earn back your investment if profits stayed the same.
PBR<\/strong> \u2014 Share price divided by net assets per share. It shows how many times its book value (assets minus liabilities) the stock trades at.
Forward PER<\/strong> \u2014 P\/E based on expected earnings for this year and next, rather than past earnings. It reflects the profits the market expects.
MLCC<\/strong> \u2014 Multilayer ceramic capacitor. A rice-grain-sized part that briefly stores and releases electricity to keep circuit voltage stable.
FCBGA<\/strong> \u2014 A high-density semiconductor substrate that connects high-performance chips such as CPUs and GPUs to the main board.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"