Key points
- Jusung briefly ranked second on the Kosdaq
- Its order backlog tripled in one quarter
- What a former Osstem chairman paid in 2023
- What analysts expect for 2027
On Thursday, Jusung Engineering (주성엔지니어링, 036930) rose 8.08% to 267,500 won ($199) and briefly became the second-largest company on the Kosdaq by market value before finishing the day fourth, according to Korea Economic Daily (한국경제). The Korean chip equipment maker is up 866% this year. The stock ended 2025 at 27,700 won ($21).
Jusung's market value was about 12.4 trillion won ($9.3B) at Thursday's close. Korean markets were closed Friday for Hangeul Day. Weak Korean markets in the second half pushed the stock down to 98,300 won ($73) on July 30, and it has nearly tripled since then.
Jusung's order backlog tripled in one quarter
Jusung's main product is atomic layer deposition, or ALD, equipment. These machines lay insulating and metal films on a silicon wafer one layer of atoms at a time, which helps chipmakers make their circuits smaller. They're widely used to make advanced DRAM and 3D NAND memory.
Demand is coming from customers producing high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, and moving to finer chip processes. Jusung's order backlog was 233.6 billion won ($174M) at the end of June, about three times what it was three months earlier. Chip equipment made up 98.1% of Jusung's sales in the first half, up from 85.4% in 2024.
Analysts expect more orders from SK Hynix's new M15X fab in Cheongju, where SK Hynix is adding advanced DRAM production, and from China's CXMT, which is planning a large expansion. Samsung and SK Hynix together plan to add more than 600,000 wafers a month of capacity from 2028, according to the Bank of Korea.
Jung Woo-sung, an analyst at LS Securities (LS증권), pointed to the same customers. "SK Hynix's advanced DRAM investment, CXMT's capacity expansion, and higher equipment investment from finer processes will drive the earnings improvement," he said. "If new global customers are secured as well, the value of the chip equipment business could be revalued."
Analysts expect Jusung's operating profit to rise from 40.8 billion won ($30M) this year to 140.1 billion won ($104M) in 2027, according to consensus figures from Epic AI, an AI-based investment data service. Sales are expected to grow 36.4% next year to 497 billion won ($370M).
The former Osstem chairman's family bought 9% in 2023
One of the biggest winners from the rally is Choi Kyu-ok (최규옥), the former chairman of dental implant maker Osstem Implant (오스템임플란트), Maeil Business Newspaper (매일경제) reported Friday.
In July 2023, Choi bought 4,179,421 Jusung shares, or 8.66% of the company, on the market. Choi's two sons bought 0.21% each. That brought the family to 9.08% and made it the second-largest shareholder after founder and chairman Hwang Chul-joo (황철주), who held 24.63% at the time. The family paid 21,800 won ($16) a share on average, or 95.4 billion won ($71M) in total.
Earlier that year, Choi had sold stakes in Osstem and its subsidiaries to a consortium of private equity firms MBK Partners and UCK Partners for more than 370 billion won ($276M). The newspaper estimates part of that money went into Jusung. Choi bought 594,708 more shares between August and November 2023 at 26,000 to 27,000 won ($19 to $20).
Today the stake is split between Choi and two family investment companies, for a combined 10.15%. At Thursday's close, that's worth about 1.26 trillion won ($940M). The family's total cost was about 110 billion won ($82M). Jusung's share price is now more than 12 times what the family paid on average in July 2023.
Choi reported the Jusung purchase as a simple investment, not an attempt to influence management. Choi and Hwang have known each other for more than 20 years, according to the newspaper.
The analyst comment is translated from Korean. Won figures are converted at 1,342 won to the dollar, the Hana Bank rate shown on Naver Finance on October 9, 2026.
