SEOUL — The South Korean stock market concluded its final trading session of 2025 on a historic high, recording its most significant annual growth in over a quarter-century. Fueled by an unprecedented semiconductor super-cycle and the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom, the benchmark KOSPI has firmly entered the era of the "4,000-point era."

On December 30, the final closing day of the year, the KOSPI closed at 4,214.17. While the index saw a minor dip of 0.15% on the last day due to profit-taking by foreign and institutional investors, the annual performance tells a story of explosive growth. Starting from January 2, the index skyrocketed by 75.62% over the course of the year.

This performance is the highest since 1999 (82.78%), a year defined by the "Buy Korea Fund" craze and the initial IT bubble. Notably, Korea’s growth this year far outpaced major global benchmarks; the S&P 500 and Nasdaq recorded gains of 17.41% and 21.56%, respectively, over a similar period.

The primary engine behind this rally was the semiconductor sector. As AI data centers expanded globally, demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and conventional memory products reached a fever pitch. Samsung Electronics touched an intra-day high of 121,200 KRW, while SK Hynix reached a staggering 659,000 KRW, both shattering previous historical records.

Market analysts remain overwhelmingly bullish for 2026. Major financial institutions, including NH Investment & Securities and Nomura Securities, project that both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix could see annual operating profits hovering around 100 trillion KRW each. Nomura noted that the "memory super-cycle is likely to persist until at least 2027" due to a structural supply shortage.

"2025 will be remembered as the year the KOSPI achieved the 4,000-point milestone with record-breaking returns," said Lim Jung-eun, a researcher at KB Securities. "We maintain a positive outlook for next year, particularly for sectors where earnings growth remains robust."

Brokerage firms are already raising their targets for the coming year. While Samsung Securities offered a range of 4,000 to 4,900, more optimistic forecasts from Hyundai Motor Securities suggest the KOSPI could climb as high as 5,500 in 2026, driven by the sustained dominance of Korean chipmakers in the AI era.

[ⓒ Global Economic Times. 무단전재-재배포 금지]