Samsung profit soars 19-fold to record $58.4bn as AI demand strains memory chip supply

Samsung lifted to third straight quarter of record profit on relentless AI demand

Samsung Electronics has projected its operating profit surged 19-fold to a record in the second quarter as acute supply shortages continued to drive up memory chip prices amid booming demand fuelled by the AI race. The world's largest memory-chip maker by sales forecast operating profit of Won89.4tn ($58.4bn) for the April to June quarter on Tuesday, beating analysts' expectations of Won87.3tn, according to LSEG SmartEstimate, and exceeding Samsung Electronics' profit for all of 2025. Sales were estimated to more than double from a year earlier to Won171tn. The guidance marked a third consecutive quarter of record operating profit for the South Korean company as memory-chip makers try to keep pace with demand from AI data centres. Analysts expect supply shortages to persist into next year. Memory-chip makers have been among the biggest beneficiaries of the global build-out of AI infrastructure. Samsung Electronics' shares have risen 165 per cent this year, lifting its market capitalisation above $1tn, although the stock has recently retreated amid concerns over returns on massive AI investment. Samsung Electronics, alongside SK Hynix, is a leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI accelerators. Analysts expect broader adoption of AI agents, which can perform tasks autonomously, to sustain strong memory demand, while manufacturers' focus on higher-margin HBM products has constrained supply of conventional memory chips used in consumer electronics.

Samsung likely to post 18-fold jump in profit on surging AI demand for memory

SEOUL, July 6 (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), opens new tab is likely to estimate that its operating profit jumped about 18-fold to another record high from a year earlier in the second quarter, as AI growth continues to strain memory supply and push chip prices higher. On Tuesday, the world's largest memory chipmaker by sales is likely to flag an operating profit of 86 trillion won ($56.35 billion) for the April to June quarter, according to an LSEG SmartEstimate based on forecasts from 30 analysts, weighted toward those with the best track records. Up from 4.7 trillion won a year earlier, this would mark a third consecutive quarter of record operating profit for Samsung, reflecting a prolonged memory shortage, as booming demand for AI inference infrastructure continues to outpace supply growth from global memory manufacturers. Analysts expect the memory market to remain undersupplied at least through next year. The robust growth has been driven not only by high-bandwidth memory (HBM), but also by ⁠stronger demand for conventional DRAM and NAND products as AI applications, particularly agentic AI, expand into a broader range of computing workloads. Unlike earlier AI applications focused mainly on training large models, agentic AI systems perform more complex, multi-step tasks that require additional memory for server processors and greater storage capacity to retain and retrieve data during inference, analysts said. Samsung is a key supplier of memory chips to major technology companies including Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab, Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab. Citi Research on Thursday said average selling prices for DRAM and NAND rose 44% and 53% quarter-on-quarter, respectively, in the second quarter. The ongoing memory shortage has fuelled a massive rally in memory chipmakers' shares, with Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix (000660.KS), opens new tab and Micron (MU.O), opens new tab soaring 158%, 273% and 242%, respectively, this year, driving all three companies' market valuations above $1 trillion. CHIP WORKERS' BONUSES COULD DEFY FORECASTS Despite the strong operating backdrop, analysts cautioned that the second-quarter earnings could fall short of consensus if Samsung books a larger-than-expected provision for employee bonuses during the quarter. In late May, Samsung averted a large-scale strike, reaching a wage deal that allocates 10.5% of the semiconductor division's operating profit ⁠to special bonuses for chip employees. Some analysts estimate Samsung's cumulative bonus provisions could exceed 40 trillion won, making the timing of accounting recognition a key variable for second-quarter earnings. Samsung will announce detailed earnings later this month. RISKS TO WATCH Looking ahead, analysts see potential delays to AI infrastructure investment as the biggest risk to the current memory boom. JPMorgan said in a recent note that while investors broadly agreed memory supply-demand fundamentals remained tight, many questioned whether AI memory's rapidly rising share of cloud service providers' capital expenditure -- estimated at 52% this year and expected to exceed 70% next year -- would be ⁠sustainable. Any drop in AI spending could come back to haunt Samsung and SK Hynix, which last week pledged to invest 3,200 trillion won ($2.07 trillion) to expand chip capacity in South Korea. Samsung expects to make that investment between 2026 and 2040, while SK Hynix gave no detailed timeframe. Investors are seeking clearer evidence that breakthroughs in AI services will translate into faster growth in cloud computing and related AI revenues, ⁠helping justify memory's expanding share of AI infrastructure spending, JPMorgan said. The world's top memory chipmaker by sales said in April it has signed multi-year binding contracts with customers hoping to lock in supplies, without disclosing identities or terms. Nomura said in a recent report that it expects commodity DRAM prices to rise 24% quarter-on-quarter and NAND prices to increase 25% in the ⁠July-September quarter, supported by higher demand for consumer memory products and chips for traditional and AI data centers. Meanwhile, Samsung's mobile business faces mounting cost pressures as rising memory prices have squeezed its margins, with higher component costs more than offsetting recent handset price increases. Although Samsung has already raised smartphone prices, analysts said further price increases may be needed in the second half of the year. Rival Apple raised prices of iPads and MacBooks last month. ($1 = 1,526.2500 won) Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Sonali Paul Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Samsung's Q2 profit jumps 19-fold to 89 trillion won on AI memory demand

The chipmaker guided to a record $58.4bn operating profit, beat the analyst consensus, and watched its shares fall anyway. Samsung Electronics guided to second-quarter operating profit of about 89.4 trillion won ($58.4bn) on Tuesday, roughly 19 times what it made in the same period a year earlier and, by most counts, the largest quarterly operating profit any technology company has ever reported. It is Samsung's third consecutive record quarter, and it came in ahead of the roughly 84 trillion won analysts had pencilled in, a jump TNW had already flagged as an 18-fold leap when the estimates were still forming. Revenue reached about 171 trillion won, more than double the 74.57 trillion won of a year earlier, though it landed a touch below the 173 trillion won some analysts had modelled. Operating profit rose about 56% on the first quarter and close to 1,810% year on year, measured against a base of just 4.68 trillion won in the second quarter of 2025, back when the memory business was still a drag rather than the engine it has become since AI rewired the memory market. The driver is pricing. Contract prices for DRAM rose about 44% quarter on quarter and NAND flash by roughly 53%, according to Citi Research, as demand for the chips inside AI servers kept outrunning what the three big memory makers can supply. High-bandwidth memory, the stacked DRAM that sits beside Nvidia's accelerators, remains the most profitable corner of the business, and Samsung spent much of the past year narrowing the gap on SK Hynix there. A turning point came in September 2025, when Samsung cleared Nvidia's qualification for its 12-layer HBM3E, ending a long run of technical setbacks tied to thermal performance. That opened the door to the customer whose spending sets the pace for the whole sector, even as SK Hynix moved faster on the next generation and locked in a multi-year HBM4 deal with Nvidia. What sets this cycle apart is breadth. The price surge now extends well beyond HBM into conventional DRAM and NAND, as AI workloads spill out of training clusters and into the ordinary server and storage build-outs that support inference at scale. The same pattern turned up in Micron's quadrupled revenue in June, the American read on an industry that cannot make memory fast enough. There is a caveat buried in the print. Samsung's guidance is understood to include a bonus provision in the tens of trillions of won, and strip that out and underlying operating profit would have cleared 100 trillion won, according to the Seoul Economic Daily. Those payouts have grown large enough to feed a running dispute over how the windfall should be split, and large enough that South Korea's central bank has treated them as a factor in wages. Investors were not uniformly convinced. Samsung shares fell more than 6% on the day, a bout of profit-taking after a rally that had priced much of the good news in already. A beat this large, in other words, is not the same thing as an upside surprise, and the revenue miss gave the doubters something to point at. The guidance is preliminary and carries only headline sales and profit, with the divisional breakdown due alongside full results on 30 July. That report will show how much of the money came from the chip division and how much was clawed back by the smartphone and display units, which buy scarce memory at the same inflated prices Samsung is charging everyone else. On current form the company's full-year profit could rival what it earned across the previous four decades combined, a comparison that says less about a single quarter than about how completely one demand cycle has rewired the business.

Samsung's 2026 profit to surpass its entire 40-year cumulative earnings

Samsung's 2026 profits are set to surpass the company's cumulative earnings over the past 40 years, marking a historic achievement for the global tech giant and, for consumers, a bunch of sand kicked into their RAM-shaped wound as prices skyrocket out of control. At a recent town hall meeting, Samsung's DS division president, Kim Yong-kwan, confirmed that the semiconductor unit is on track to deliver operating profits this year that will exceed decades of combined earnings, highlighting just how much demand there is for memory due to intense draw from the AI industry. Samsung's Q2 2026 operating profit is expected to hit 85.5 trillion KRW ($55.9 billion), fueled by record demand for AI memory chips, which are used in components that further increase the intelligence/sophistication of AI models. If these expectations are correct, it would represent an 18x year-over-year increase for Samsung, quite an astonishing figure. Separate reports from TradingKey and CNBC highlight that the Q1 operating profit alone surged 756% to 57.2 trillion won, and of that massive pile of cash, AI memory accounted for 94% of the total profit. The AI-driven memory chip boom has placed Samsung at the forefront of the semiconductor industry, as it is one of the three major players in the memory industry. As data centers and AI systems require more high-bandwidth memory, Samsung's strategic positioning as a frontrunner in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market has paid off tremendously. With preliminary Q1 results already exceeding expectations, the full-year projection is staggering, and if the success continues, Samsung may soon eclipse Apple and NVIDIA in a single quarter, a rare feat in the tech world. Notably, these earnings from Samsung come as the company raised DRAM prices by 90% in Q1 2026 compared with Q4 2025 prices.

What could shape Samsung's growth in the coming quarters? - Samsung projects a record-breaking quarter

What could shape Samsung's growth in the coming quarters? 1/5 Samsung projects a record-breaking quarter Samsung Electronics has projected a 19-fold jump in second-quarter operating profit, comfortably beating market expectations. The company also expects record revenue, driven by robust demand for memory chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The results mark Samsung's third straight quarter of record earnings, highlighting the continued strength of the AI-driven semiconductor cycle. (Sources: Reuters, CNBC, Invezz) 2/5 AI memory chip demand to drive growth Strong demand for DRAM and NAND flash memory chips will be the key driver of Samsung's earnings growth. Tight industry supply, as chipmakers prioritise production of AI-focused high-bandwidth memory (HBM), has pushed memory prices higher. Continued investments in AI data centres by major global technology firms have further supported the company's semiconductor business. 3/5 Why did the stock decline? Despite reporting record preliminary earnings, Samsung's shares fell sharply as investors shifted their focus to future growth prospects. Markets are becoming increasingly concerned that the AI-led semiconductor boom may be nearing its peak. Investors are also questioning whether the current pace of AI infrastructure spending by major technology companies can be sustained over the longer term. 4/5 Other investor concerns Apart from valuation worries, analysts pointed to sizeable employee bonus provisions in Samsung's semiconductor division, which weighed on reported profitability. Investors are also watching for the risk of oversupply as global chipmakers continue to expand manufacturing capacity. Meanwhile, Samsung's foundry and logic chip businesses are still expected to face challenges despite the strong performance of its memory business. 5/5 What to watch next? Samsung is scheduled to release its detailed second-quarter earnings later this month, which will provide greater insight into the performance of its various business segments. Investors will closely monitor memory chip pricing, demand for AI-related semiconductors, and the company's progress in expanding its AI chip and foundry businesses. The outlook for Samsung will largely depend on whether global AI investment remains strong in the coming quarters.

Samsung Now Out-Earns Nvidia: Goldman Sees Up To 80% Upside - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), SAMSUNG ELECT LTD by S

Samsung Now Makes More Money Than Nvidia -- And Goldman Says the Stock Is Still Dirt Cheap Wall Street is starting to catch up, and Goldman Sachs thinks the stock is still cheap. Goldman Sachs analyst Giuni Lee reiterated a Buy rating, citing "solid fundamentals" in the memory business that remain intact. Samsung's Reported Earnings Beat Apple: Guidance Targets Nvidia In its most recent audited quarter, the South-Korean company reported operating profit of 57.23 trillion won (about $38 billion). That's enough to edge past the roughly $36 billion Apple posted in its latest quarter. In preliminary guidance released July 7, it projected second-quarter operating profit of about 89.4 trillion won (roughly $59 billion) on sales near 171 trillion won. That figure, if confirmed, would surpass the roughly $53.5 billion Nvidia reported last quarter, and it represents a nearly nineteenfold jump from the same period a year earlier, when Samsung earned just 4.68 trillion won. It's Memory, Not Galaxy Phones Samsung's chip division has been driving the vast majority of group profit, powered by an AI-fueled scramble for memory that has sent DRAM and NAND prices sharply higher. "Bhe beat mainly came from better-than-expected DRAM profit more than offsetting weaker-than-expected smartphones," Lee said. The company recently became the first in the world to surpass $1 billion in HBM4 revenue, according to Goldman Sachs. HBM (high-bandwidth memory) feeds Nvidia's AI accelerators. The market structure amplifies it: Samsung, Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) and South Korea's SK Hynix control roughly 85% of the memory market. Few suppliers, exploding demand. Lee pointed to continued tightness in memory supply and demand and to multi-year long-term agreements with customers that should keep pricing and margins elevated, while flagging scope for higher shareholder returns as free cash flow builds. Goldman raised its 2026-2028 EPS estimates and kept its 12-month target of 480,000 won on the common shares -- implying about 62% upside from the July 7 close -- and 360,000 won on the preference shares, implying roughly 80%. The Cheapest Mega-Cap In Tech? Here's the paradox: a company printing record profit trades at about 5.3 times forward earnings, versus a long-run average near 14 times. The market is quietly pricing in that the boom fades, a fear rooted in memory's brutal history of boom-and-bust cycles. Not everyone agrees this is a peak. Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research, told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday that "you cannot do AI without memory," describing structural demand with an 18-to-24-month order backlog and placing the AI buildout in only its "third inning." The debate now has a date: July 30, when Samsung's full Q2 results reveal whether this profit surge reflects a durable AI-memory mix or a pricing cycle near its top. Image: Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Samsung Eyes Another Record Quarter on Explosive AI Memory Demand, But Rising Employee Bonuses Could Clou

AI Memory Boom Expected to Drive Another Record Quarter Samsung is expected to report an operating profit of about 86 trillion won ($56.35 billion) for the April-to-June quarter, according to an LSEG SmartEstimate based on forecasts from 30 analysts, Reuters reported on Sunday. That would represent an almost 18-fold increase from 4.7 trillion won a year earlier and mark the company's third consecutive quarter of record operating profit. The expected earnings surge reflects a prolonged shortage in the global memory market, with demand for AI infrastructure continuing to outpace supply. Analysts believe the market will remain undersupplied through at least next year. AI Demand Lifts DRAM And NAND Prices The AI boom is boosting demand not only for high-bandwidth memory used in AI accelerators but also for conventional DRAM and NAND chips as more advanced AI applications require greater memory and storage capacity. According to Citi Research, average selling prices for DRAM and NAND climbed 44% and 53%, respectively, during the second quarter. The rally has fueled gains across the memory industry, with Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) all seeing their market valuations surpass $1 trillion this year. Employee Bonuses Could Weigh On Samsung Earnings Despite the strong operating environment, analysts caution that Samsung's reported earnings could fall short of expectations if it books a larger-than-expected provision for employee bonuses. The company reached a wage agreement in May that allocates 10.5% of the semiconductor division's operating profit to special bonuses. Some analysts estimate cumulative bonus provisions could exceed 40 trillion won, making the timing of those accounting charges an important factor in quarterly results. AI Spending Outlook Remains A Key Risk Looking ahead, analysts say the biggest threat to Samsung's momentum is any slowdown in AI infrastructure spending. JPMorgan noted investors remain confident about tight memory supply-demand fundamentals but are increasingly questioning whether AI memory's growing share of cloud providers' capital expenditures can be sustained over the long term. Samsung is scheduled to release its detailed second-quarter earnings later this month. Price Action: At the time of writing, Samsung shares were trading at 307,000 South Korean won (about $00), down 0.81% on the day in Seoul, according to Benzinga Pro. According to Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings, Samsung shares show a positive price trend across the short, medium and long-term time frames. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo Courtesy: Kittyfly on Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Samsung Electronics Q2 profit tops Nvidia's record on AI chip boom - The Korea Times

Samsung Electronics headquarters in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province / Yonhap Samsung Electronics projected another record-breaking earnings for the second quarter, Tuesday, forecasting an operating profit of 89.4 trillion won ($58.4 billion) and 171 trillion won in sales in its earnings guidance, driven by a global boom in demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. The company said its operating profit is estimated to have surged 1,810.3 percent from a year earlier and 56.2 percent from the previous quarter, while sales also jumped 129.3 percent year-over-year and 27.7 percent from the first quarter. The earnings estimate surpasses Samsung's previous record quarterly operating profit of 57.23 trillion won in the first quarter of this year, extending its unprecedented streak to a third consecutive quarter of record revenue and operating profit. The second-quarter operating profit alone exceeded the company's combined operating profit over the past three years, which totaled 82.9 trillion won -- 6.57 trillion won in 2023, 32.7 trillion won in 2024 and 43.6 trillion won in 2025. The results also surpass the record quarterly operating profits posted by two of the most profitable tech companies globally, Nvidia and Apple. Nvidia's record stands at about $53.5 billion, while Apple's peak is approximately $50.9 billion, making Samsung's latest figure unprecedented among major tech giants. The earnings also topped the consensus forecasts compiled by financial market data provider FnGuide, which had projected an average operating profit of 84.8 trillion won, delivering another earnings surprise. The record performance came even after the company recognized what is estimated to be nearly 20 trillion won in provisions over the past two quarters for performance bonuses under the recent wage agreements. Without the one‑off expense, estimates suggest quarterly operating profit would have topped the 100 trillion won mark, further underscoring the strength of the underlying business. The earnings boom has been fueled by soaring demand for AI infrastructure, which has driven memory prices sharply higher amid tight supply. That backdrop is expected to keep pricing favorable through the second half of the year as AI adoption expands, although rising memory procurement costs could weigh on profitability at Samsung's Device eXperience (DX) business, which oversees smartphones, consumer electronics and other finished products. "Meritz Securities estimates the Device Solutions (DV) division posted operating profit of 90 trillion won, including 93.2 trillion won from the memory business, partially offset by a 3.2 trillion won operating loss from the System LSI and foundry businesses," Meritz Securities analyst Kim Sun-woo said. "Compared with our latest forecast, the memory segment outperformed expectations by about 900 billion won." Noting that the latest performance reflects a meaningful strengthening of Samsung's ability to monetize its memory portfolio, he said Samsung Electronics has been consistently exercising pricing leadership in both DRAM and NAND, capturing a larger share of the upside from the AI-driven memory rally. "While the foundry business is incurring higher fixed costs as Samsung adjusts orders and utilization rates to restore its competitiveness, we view this as a natural part of the investment cycle needed to support long-term growth, underpinned by the company's strong profitability in memory," Kim said. The company will release its final financial results with detailed earnings, including business segment performance and net profit, later this month.

Samsung Profits Surge 1,800% as AI Memory Chip Demand Fuels Record Quarter

says it expects to post a 19-fold jump in its profits given the explosive demand for its AI memory chips. The South Korean tech giant estimates an operating profit of 89.4 trillion won for the first half of this year, equivalent to around $58.4 billion, which is an increase of 1,810% compared with the same period last year. Revenue is expected to increase sharply. said sales likely reached 171 trillion won in the quarter, an increase of 129% compared to the previous year. The company expects to publish results at the end of this month. The announcement of earnings demonstrates the changing landscape in the semiconductor sector as a result of the global AI boom. Advanced memory chips in data centers and AI systems remain in short supply, allowing companies like Samsung and SK Hynix to raise prices and improve margins. Samsung's latest estimate is among "the best quarterly performances ever," according to Marc Einstein from Counterpoint Research. "This is all because of the AI boom," he said. Samsung is one of the world's largest makers of memory chips and a supplier of semiconductors to the world's leading technology companies, such as and Google. The company's performance is coming at a time when global demand for AI chips continues to exceed supply. Also Read: According to IDC, the memory industry has experienced a different type of demand in the data centre and AI infrastructure segment compared to previous cycles. IDC's Bryan Ma predicted strong demand from AI data centers will keep chip supplies tight for the coming year. Despite the strong earnings estimate, the shares of Samsung dropped around 7% to 8% in Seoul trading, as some investors had been hoping for an even higher profit. Nevertheless, Samsung's market value has doubled since the start of the year, while is up over 200%. The Kospi index, South Korea's benchmark index, is more than 80% higher this year, driven by the performance of key chip makers. The boom has brought broader economic effects in South Korea. In June, the country announced a plan to invest at least $880 billion in investments linked to Samsung and SK Hynix to increase chip production. However, the key danger lies in how far the AI memory demand grows beyond next year, analysts warn. For now, Samsung remains among the top beneficiaries of the global AI infrastructure race.