SEOUL, October 08, 2026 (DAILYNWZ) — Samsung Electronics expects third-quarter operating profit to nearly quadruple from the previous quarter and rise almost ninefold year on year to a record 107.4 trillion won ($80.17 billion), as surging demand for artificial-intelligence chips drives a global memory shortage and pushes prices higher.
The forecast would make the July-September result the highest quarterly operating profit ever reported by a technology company and the fourth consecutive record quarter for Samsung, the world’s largest memory-chip maker. It was slightly above an LSEG SmartEstimate of 106.1 trillion won.
The numbers underline how heavily Samsung’s earnings are benefiting from the AI investment boom. Demand for conventional DRAM and NAND memory remains strong, while high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, has become increasingly important for the vast data-processing requirements of AI systems.
Samsung and Micron expect the supply-demand imbalance in memory chips to persist into 2028. But investors are already looking beyond the current boom, with Chinese competition and a possible slowdown in AI spending seen as longer-term risks.
Samsung shares were little changed after the forecast, falling 0.2% in early trading compared with a 0.5% decline in the benchmark KOSPI. The stock remains more than 25% below its June record high, reflecting doubts over how long the AI-driven earnings surge can last.
“The market’s focus has shifted to whether the sharp earnings growth that started a year ago would be sustainable,” said Kim Seok-hwan, a market analyst at Mirae Asset Securities.
A stronger South Korean won has also prompted analysts to reduce some earnings forecasts because it lowers the local-currency value of Samsung’s dollar-denominated overseas sales.
The pace of growth is expected to cool in the fourth quarter. Analysts forecast an 8.2% increase in profit from the third quarter, compared with 20% sequential growth in the July-September period. TrendForce expects contract prices for conventional DRAM to rise 10% to 15% in the fourth quarter, well below the roughly 60% jump recorded in the second quarter.
Memory chips are expected to account for most of Samsung’s profit improvement. Douglas Kim of Douglas Research Advisory estimated that the company’s HBM shipments, measured by bit volume, rose by nearly 50% from the previous quarter as Samsung works to narrow its gap with South Korean rival SK Hynix in the HBM market.
The memory boom is creating problems elsewhere in the group. Samsung’s smartphone and consumer-electronics businesses are facing higher component costs, while its mobile division is estimated to have posted a larger-than-expected loss of more than $1 billion in the third quarter.
Its contract chipmaking business is also expected to remain loss-making, weighed down by high fixed costs and low factory utilization. Utilization should improve over coming quarters as demand for advanced manufacturing processes strengthens, Samsung said, as it seeks to close the gap with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the industry leader.
Samsung expects third-quarter revenue to rise 127% from a year earlier to 195 trillion won. It will publish detailed results by business division on October 29, while investors are also expected to scrutinize its shareholder-return policy during its earnings call later this month.