Samsung Posts Record $80 Billion Quarterly Profit on AI Chip Boom

Samsung Electronics said Thursday it expects to report an operating profit of about 107.4 trillion won, roughly $80 billion, for the third quarter, a figure that would be nearly nine times the 12.17 trillion won it earned in the same quarter last year. In preliminary guidance released by the company, consolidated sales were estimated at roughly 195 trillion won, up 127 percent from a year earlier, driven almost entirely by its semiconductor division.

The projected profit beat the consensus estimate of 106.1 trillion won tracked by LSEG and would mark Samsung's fourth consecutive record quarter. According to the Korea Herald, it would also be the first time any South Korean company has reported more than 100 trillion won in operating profit in a single quarter, a milestone that underscores how completely the artificial intelligence buildout has reshaped the memory-chip market over the past eighteen months.

Memory chips can't keep up with AI demand

Samsung's device solutions division, which makes the DRAM, NAND and high-bandwidth memory chips that go into servers training and running AI models, accounted for nearly all of the quarter's profit. Demand for HBM, the stacked memory used alongside AI processors, has been growing faster than supply, and analysts at J.P. Morgan estimate Samsung's share of that market rose to roughly a third of global output this year, up from about a fifth in 2025. Research firm TrendForce estimated Samsung's HBM shipments alone grew by close to 50 percent from the prior quarter.

"Although the market remains in a tight supply position, the pace of price growth is expected to decelerate," Avril Wu, a TrendForce senior vice president, told reporters. Conventional DRAM contract prices are still projected to rise 10 to 15 percent in the fourth quarter, TrendForce said, a sharp slowdown from the roughly 60 percent surge recorded in the second quarter.

Signs the boom may be leveling off

Not every part of Samsung's business is benefiting. Its foundry, mobile, television and home-appliance units remain unprofitable, squeezed by the same rising memory costs that are lifting the chip division. Some analysts have trimmed their forecasts in recent weeks on concern that chip margins may already have peaked; Kinngai Chan of Summit Insights Group said industry checks show "an increasing number" of device makers shifting toward cheaper Chinese-made memory as the AI-driven shortage pushes up prices elsewhere in the market. Samsung shares have fallen roughly 25 percent from their June record even as the earnings outlook has improved, reflecting investor unease over how long the current pricing cycle can last. Samsung's final, audited results for the quarter are due later this month, when the company typically also updates investors on capital spending plans for its memory and foundry businesses.