Morgan Stanley: Samsung Leads Global Profits, Memory Supercycle Yet to Receive Full Valuation

Morgan Stanley's research report dated October 11, 2026 noted that Samsung Electronics' third-quarter operating profit was approximately $81.3 billion, surpassing Nvidia's $71.6 billion and SK Hynix's $57.8 billion. Samsung and SK Hynix shares have fallen about 35% from their peaks, with forward P/E ratios of only 3 to 4 times.

The report forecasts the HBM market will triple to $100 billion by 2028; it expects DRAM contract prices to rise 10% to 15% quarter-over-quarter in Q4, NAND to rise 15% to 20%, and enterprise SSDs to rise 23% to 28%. Morgan Stanley concludes that the memory supercycle is real, but the market is still pricing it based on the old cycle and has not assigned full valuation multiples; it recommends overweighting AI computing and networking supply chains, with selective allocation in memory, favoring Samsung, SK Hynix, and Kioxia.

[TechFlow]