Goldman Sachs Raises Kioxia Price Target Again to ¥116,000
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Goldman Sachs lifted Kioxia Holdings' target price from ¥93,000 to ¥116,000, implying 31% upside; the core thesis is persistently tight NAND supply-demand and management's explicit commitment to pricing over volume.
Why is Goldman raising the target again?
Analysts Shuhei Nakamura and Kaho Otake published their note on June 30, reiterating a Buy rating and lifting the 12-month target to ¥116,000.
This means → at the current share price of ¥88,450, Goldman sees roughly 31% room to run.
Two pillars behind the upgrade: NAND supply remains tight + management actively defends pricing.
What is different about Kioxia's strategy?
At its recent investor day and analyst call, management stated clearly: it will not sacrifice price to secure long-term contracts — maintaining ASP and margins comes first.
In plain terms = while rivals may cut prices to win orders, Kioxia chooses to ship less but earn more per unit.
Goldman believes this approach keeps Kioxia's margins industry-leading, well above Samsung and SanDisk.
Why could NAND stay tight through 2028?
Goldman's channel checks with equipment makers found that major memory producers are channeling capex toward DRAM first; new NAND capacity is unlikely to come online before CY2028.
Three demand drivers are hitting at once: enterprise SSDs surging with server deployments + HDD supply tightness creating substitution demand + U.S. export-control concerns on Korean memory makers constraining supply.
This means → supply cannot expand while demand accelerates — the seller's market is hard to break in the near term.
How much did earnings forecasts go up?
Goldman raised Kioxia's ASP forecasts: CY2026 year-on-year growth from 4.3× to 4.5×, CY2027 from 27% to 38%.
This drives operating-profit forecast upgrades of 9%, 19%, and 29% for FY3/27 through FY3/29; EPS estimates rise 10%, 19%, and 29% over the same period.
Kioxia also repaid a senior loan early, cutting interest costs and giving EPS an additional lift.
Can Q1 earnings beat expectations?
Kioxia reports FY3/27 Q1 results on July 31. Goldman forecasts operating profit of ¥1.417 trillion, above the company's own guidance of ¥1.298 trillion and the Bloomberg consensus of ¥1.36 trillion.
Roughly 30% of Q1 shipments had not yet been priced when guidance was set, leaving room for ASP upside.
This means → July 31 is the nearest key catalyst — whether actual ASPs beat expectations will test the market's confidence in Goldman's thesis.
How do valuation and share performance look?
The new target implies an FY3/28E P/E of about 8.2×, which Goldman considers reasonable in an upcycle.
Kioxia's projected FY3/27 EBIT margin reaches 80.1%, rising to 81.3% and 81.5% in FY3/28 and FY3/29. Cost reductions come from scaling bit shipments on 8th-generation BiCS — Kioxia's proprietary NAND stacking technology — combined with lower capital intensity than peers.
Kioxia's stock has surged 3,406% over the past 12 months, vastly outperforming the TOPIX index.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.