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• Samsung forecast Q3 operating profit of 107.4 trillion won (~$80bn), up nearly nine-fold from a year earlier and its fourth consecutive quarterly record. • Revenue is expected to reach 195 trillion won, up 127% year on year, as a global memory-chip shortage drives prices sharply higher. • The company is ramping up HBM4 production for AI accelerators, and has begun selling next-generation chips to firms including Nvidia. • Analysts remain split on how long the boom can last, with shares still more than 25% below their June record.
Samsung Electronics has projected the largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a technology company, forecasting operating profit of 107.4 trillion won — about $80bn — for the three months to September. The estimate, published on Thursday, represents a near nine-fold jump from the same period last year and marks the fourth consecutive quarter in which the South Korean conglomerate has broken its own earnings record. According to the BBC's reporting on the announcement, the forecast was slightly ahead of the LSEG SmartEstimate of 106.1 trillion won that analysts had pencilled in.
The numbers underline how completely the global technology industry has been reshaped by artificial intelligence. Revenue for the quarter is expected to climb 127% to 195 trillion won, and both the sales and profit figures would be all-time highs for the company. Samsung said it would release its detailed results, including the performance of individual business divisions, at the end of October.
The scale of the increase is striking. A year ago, Samsung reported third-quarter operating profit of 12.17 trillion won. This year's estimate of 107.4 trillion won implies growth of about 783%, one of the steepest year-on-year improvements ever posted by a company of this size. It would also be the first time any South Korean company has surpassed 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit, a milestone that captures the scale of the current semiconductor cycle.
Samsung is expected to break its own records for both sales and operating profit for the fourth quarter in a row, capping a run that began as the AI infrastructure build-out gathered pace. Full-year operating profit is on course to dwarf anything the company has achieved before. For readers following the wider economy, Verity's business coverage tracks how these technology cycles feed through into markets, while our technology section follows the AI industry itself.
At the heart of the story is the humble memory chip. Samsung is the world's largest maker of memory semiconductors — alongside South Korea's SK Hynix and America's Micron — producing the DRAM and NAND chips that go into everything from smartphones to servers. In recent quarters, a new category has come to dominate the conversation: high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, the specialised stacked memory used in AI data centres to process vast quantities of data for training and running large models.
Demand for AI infrastructure is outpacing the growth of memory supply, and that imbalance has driven chip prices up sharply. Conventional DRAM and NAND prices have risen as capacity stays tight, while HBM commands premium pricing as AI firms race to secure supply. Samsung has been moving aggressively up this technology curve: it has started selling HBM4, its newest generation, to AI chipmakers including Nvidia, and has reportedly received Nvidia's quality approval for HBM4E chips destined for future AI platforms.
!Close-up of computer memory chips mounted on green circuit boards. Close-up of computer memory chips mounted on green circuit boards. Credit: LHF / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The boom is being funded at an extraordinary scale. Google, Amazon and Meta have each pledged enormous sums to AI infrastructure this year — more than $650bn combined, according to the BBC's reporting — while South Korea itself unveiled an $880bn Samsung and SK Hynix-led chip investment plan in June. Data centres, the warehouses of servers that train and serve AI models, consume memory chips in enormous volumes, and every wave of new investment tightens the market further. The International Energy Agency has tracked how the electricity appetite of these facilities is rising in step with the hardware build-out, underlining how physical the digital boom has become.
That dynamic has a direct link to the infrastructure debate in Western capitals. The scramble to site new data centres is already reshaping cities, as explored in Verity's report on London's Charlton Riverside dilemma, where housing and data-centre ambitions collide. Samsung's results are the financial expression of the same trend: the physical infrastructure of the AI age is in short supply, and those who supply its components hold extraordinary pricing power.
There is a catch for ordinary buyers. The same shortage that is enriching Samsung is pushing up the price of the components inside everyday electronics, and the BBC reported that the global chip shortage has been making phones and computers more expensive. When DRAM and NAND prices rise, manufacturers eventually pass those costs on, whether through higher shelf prices or by trimming memory specifications at the same price point.
Samsung's stock-market valuation crossed the $1tn mark earlier this year, a reflection of how central the company has become to the AI economy. Yet the company is not immune to the wider pressures buffeting technology stocks, and the strength of its currency — the South Korean won has appreciated sharply — is trimming analysts' forecasts, since it reduces the won value of dollar-denominated overseas sales.
Samsung is not alone in riding this wave. SK Hynix and Micron have also benefited heavily from AI-driven memory demand, and the three companies now dominate the HBM market together. Reuters reported that Samsung and Micron expect the supply-demand imbalance to persist into 2028, which would extend one of the longest and most profitable semiconductor up-cycles on record.
But the market is asking how long the boom can last. Despite flagging another record, Samsung's shares slipped 0.2% in early trading, underperforming even the broader market, and they remain more than 25% below the record high reached in June. Market analyst Kim Seok-hwan of Mirae Asset Securities told Reuters that the market's focus had shifted to "whether the sharp earnings growth that started a year ago would be sustainable." Analysts point to Chinese competition and the possibility of a slowdown in AI spending as the main longer-term risks.
Brokers closer to the story are more bullish. Analysts at South Korea's Shinhan Securities said last week they expected "even stronger earnings" from Samsung next year, arguing the company is positioned for a rapid increase in market share as it ramps up HBM4 output. The transition to next-generation HBM, they argued, will let Samsung renegotiate prices and lock in solid margins. For context on how AI giants are behaving behind the boom, see Verity's coverage of OpenAI's internal shake-up.
Samsung's full third-quarter results later this month will show exactly where the money is being made — and whether the most extraordinary profit run in technology history still has room to run. Read more business news on Verity, and learn more about our editorial mission.
Samsung's third-quarter operating profit is expected to reach 107.4 trillion won, up about 783% from 12.17 trillion won a year earlier. The surge is driven by memory chips — conventional DRAM and NAND plus high-bandwidth memory (HBM) — which are in huge demand from companies building AI data centres. A widening gap between that demand and supply growth has pushed chip prices sharply higher, and Samsung, as the world's largest memory-chip maker, is the biggest beneficiary.
High-bandwidth memory (HBM) is a specialised type of memory stacked in layers and placed alongside processors in AI accelerators, where it handles the enormous data flows needed to train and run large AI models. Samsung, its South Korean rival SK Hynix and US company Micron dominate this market. Samsung has begun selling HBM4, its newest generation, to AI chip customers including Nvidia, and has reportedly received Nvidia's quality approval for a follow-on product, HBM4E.
Investors are looking past the headline numbers. Samsung's shares slipped after the announcement and remain more than 25% below their June record, as the market questions whether the sharp earnings growth that began a year ago is sustainable. Analysts cite risks including Chinese competition, a potential slowdown in AI spending, and the strengthening South Korean won, which shrinks the value of overseas dollar sales when converted into won.
Tight supply has already pushed up prices of memory chips, and those higher costs tend to feed through into finished electronics over time. The global chip shortage has been making phones and computers more expensive. Samsung and Micron expect the supply-demand imbalance to persist into 2028, which suggests component prices are unlikely to fall quickly.
Samsung's figures are estimates published ahead of its formal quarterly report. The company said it will release its detailed third-quarter results, including a breakdown by business division, at the end of October.
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