Korea Investment & Securities analyzed on the 5th that LEENO Industrial has shown growth in performance despite poor smartphone industry conditions. They raised the target stock price from the previous 45,000 won to 51,000 won, a 13.3% increase, and maintained their investment opinion as 'buy.' The closing price of LEENO Industrial on the previous trading day was 43,600 won.
Korea Investment & Securities expected that in the second quarter of this year, LEENO Industrial's sales and operating profit would record 911 million won and 408 million won, increasing by 29.3% and 22.7% compared to the previous year, respectively. By product, sales of test sockets are estimated to increase by 35% year-on-year to 617 million won, while LEENO pins are expected to grow 15% over the same period to 206 million won.
This year, major smartphone manufacturers' strategy for expanding sales volume is to expand their lineup of smartphones equipped with high-performance application processors (AP). The Apple iPhone 16e and Samsung Electronics Galaxy S25 Edge are representative examples. This is positive for the expansion of mass production sales of LEENO Industrial's pogo pin sockets, and the proportion of mass production sales of test sockets is expected to increase from 21.4% last year to 31.6% this year.
Park Sang-hyun, a researcher at Korea Investment & Securities, said, 'Although smartphone shipments in the second quarter are expected to decrease by 0.4% compared to the same period last year, the sales of LEENO Industrial's test sockets will remain solid.' He noted, 'Despite the slowdown in the smartphone industry, there is a revenue growth trend.'
He added, 'Due to the continuous increase in pogo pin density of test sockets as a result of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) performance in smartphone APs, it is also possible to maintain the current high operating profit margin (OPM) of nearly 45%. If advancements related to Siri and the large language model (LLM) based on this are shared at this month's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), a short-term rise in stock prices due to expectations of recovery in smartphone demand in the second half of the year can also be anticipated.'