As tech giant Samsung Electronics’ stock has set fresh record highs for three consecutive sessions and crossed the psychological threshold of 80,000 won ($73.66), South Korean brokerage firms have raised their target prices for the firm on signs of a recovery in demand in the global memory chip market, reports showed Tuesday.

Some analysts predicted the world’s top memory chip maker’s stock price to rise as high as 111,000 won, up from their prior average target price of 86,000 won. The adjustment came after the tech giant’s shares reached an all-time high of 84,400 won during intraday trading a day earlier.

Followed by the newly-suggested target, they anticipated Samsung’s market capitalization to reach up to 660 trillion won from its record high of 503.85 trillion won set during the previous trading. While painting a rosy outlook for the semiconductor industry, they especially pinned big hopes on business growth of Harman International, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics.

“Expectations of inflationary impact of foundry’s supply shortage and price rises, along with DRAM market showing signs of a turnaround, resulted to the recent strong rally of the stock,” Kim Kyung-min, an analyst at Hana Financial Investment wrote in a report published jointly with analysts Kim Roko and Kim Hyun-soo.

Hana Financial also forecast that the chip maker is likely to raise dividend payouts to shareholders from this year. Samsung’s annual dividends marked 9.6 trillion won in the past three years but the amount is highly likely to increase to 20 trillion won per year for several years, the report read.

Samsung is slated to announce its fourth quarter earnings Friday. The brokerage firm has lowered the chip maker’s estimated operating profit to 9.5 trillion won from the previous 10.6 trillion won.

“The estimation has reflected the rise of the local currency’s value against the US greenback and costs to beef up fabless facilities,” the analyst said. “Considering investors’ expectations of the firm, those factors would have a limited impact on the share price.”

Other local brokerages such as Kiwoom Securities and Hi Investment & Securities have lowered their forecast on the chip maker’s business performance in the last quarter as well. However, they also raised their target prices of the tech giant from 90,000 won and 80,000 won to 100,000 won and 96,000 won, respectively.

Fueled by institutional investors, the blue chip shares ended trading at 81,000 won on the final trading session last year. On the first trading day of 2021, domestic retail investors, often called ’Donghak Ants,‘ went on a buying spree, lifting the price to 83,000 won at the closing.

Buoyed by retail investors’ buying binge of Samsung Electronics’ shares, it closed at 83,900 won Tuesday, up 900 won or 1.08 percent, from the previous session’s close. It started lower in the morning and remained on a downward trend until around 3 p.m. but suddenly moved upward to end strong.

Its market cap also reached some 500.86 trillion won, marking the first time that the market kingpin’s valuation exceeded the 500 trillion won mark at the closing. Of the nation’s main bourse Kospi constituents’ total market cap, Samsung accounted for 23.62 percent. Combining its preferred shares, the valuation rose to around 562 trillion won.

By Jie Ye-eun (yeeun@heraldcorp.com)