[Citi: Maintain SK Hynix's "Buy" rating and the potential for memory upcycle extension has not been fully reflected] On October 20, Citi released a report stating that it expected SK Hynix's third-quarter operating profit to be 81.3 trillion won, up 34% month-on-month and 614% year-on-year, 8% higher than market expectations of 75.5 trillion won, despite facing foreign exchange headwinds and HBM4-related noise. The bank expects SK Hynix’s third-quarter sales to be 101.2 trillion won, up 28% month-on-month and 314% year-on-year. Citigroup expects that driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence inference, memory demand for KV-cache workloads will increase, supporting SK Hynix's third-quarter DRAM average selling price to rise by 28% quarter-on-quarter, and NAND average selling price to rise by 24% quarter-on-quarter. The bank believes that as the adoption of continuous learning increases, the demand for artificial intelligence inference will continue to expand, driving eSSD demand to grow by 52.9% year-on-year in 2027. The bank pointed out that SK Hynix focuses on high-density QLC NAND technology and is improving the performance of TLC NAND to match artificial intelligence customized solutions. It believes that the company will become the main beneficiary of the surge in eSSD demand. The bank believes that the tight supply of memory will continue until 2028. The current stock price is equivalent to a forecast price-earnings ratio of 2.7 times and a forecast price-to-book ratio of 1.4 times for the next 12 months, which does not fully reflect the potential of extending the memory upcycle. Citigroup maintains its target price of SK Hynix's Korean stock at 3 million won and its "buy" rating unchanged.