[Click e-Stock] "MK Electron Rides SoCAMM2 to Accelerate Growth... Bonding Wire and Solder Ball Businesses Expand in Tandem"

MK Electron is expected to accelerate its earnings improvement, building on its global No. 1 bonding wire business and growing demand for solder balls and SoCAMM2-related products.

According to Hanyang Securities on October 21, MK Electron is a semiconductor back-end materials company, with bonding wire accounting for about 95% of its semiconductor materials revenue in the first half of 2026. It has more than 150 customers, including Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, ASE and Amkor, and ranks first globally by sales volume, with an approximately 22% share of the bonding wire market.

Lee Junseok, a researcher at Hanyang Securities, said, "Bonding wire is in a phase of broad-based demand expansion. Although a temporary slowdown is expected in the third quarter due to a weaker exchange rate and factors related to gold inventory, the recovery is expected to resume in the fourth quarter."

Hanyang Securities estimated MK Electron's revenue this year at KRW 2.2011 trillion and operating profit at KRW 94.1 billion. Its operating margin is expected to improve from 1.0% last year to 4.3% this year. Production capacity in China is also set to increase from the current 400,000 km per month to 500,000 km early next year.

The solder ball business is also continuing to grow. Solder ball revenue rose from KRW 28 billion in 2024 to KRW 37 billion in 2025, and reached KRW 28.2 billion in the first half of 2026. The company's share at Samsung Electronics is currently estimated at about 10%, and MK Electron aims to increase it to 25% over the medium term. Profitability is also expected to improve as it expands its solder paste customer base and ramps up sales of high-margin palladium (Pd) alloy products.

Lee said, "Solder balls offer potential not only for higher sales volumes but also for an improved product mix. Profitability is expected to rise as the share of high-margin products increases."

SoCAMM2, a memory module for AI servers, is seen as a new growth driver. Based on LPDDR5X, SoCAMM2 is expected to enter the market alongside its adoption in Nvidia's Vera CPU. Wire bonding technology is used in the stacked LPDDR packages for SoCAMM2, so increased module shipments and more advanced stacking are expected to drive demand for bonding wire.

MK Electron is developing high-strength gold wire for SoCAMM. Domestic sales of gold wire rose from a monthly average of 60,000 km last year to 75,000 km in the second quarter of this year, and process efficiency improvements mean the company can meet production demand of up to 150,000 km per month. The company may also expand its supply portfolio to include solder balls for SoCAMM2.

Lee said, "Expansion of the SoCAMM2 market will create a direct opportunity for MK Electron. With the potential to expand its supply portfolio from gold wire to solder balls, the company is expected to secure a new growth driver in 2027."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.