Samsung Electronics has projected a quarterly operating profit above 100 trillion won — about $80 billion — for the first time, estimating a nearly nine-fold jump in third-quarter earnings as booming demand for artificial-intelligence chips drives memory prices sharply higher.
The world’s largest memory chipmaker put July-September operating profit at 107.4 trillion won, slightly ahead of analyst estimates, with revenue expected to rise about 127 percent to roughly 195 trillion won. It is Samsung’s fourth consecutive quarter of record operating profit, up from about 12 trillion won a year earlier. Analyst estimates suggest the chip division alone accounted for effectively all of the total, with average selling prices for DRAM up about 20 percent and NAND flash up about 19 percent from the previous quarter.
The driver is a deepening global memory shortage. AI data centers are absorbing enormous volumes of conventional memory and high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, while supply expansion lags. Samsung’s share of the HBM market is expected to climb from about 20 percent toward 34 percent during 2026, narrowing the gap with its main rival, and the company expects the supply-demand imbalance to persist into 2028.
Investors, notably, did not celebrate. Samsung shares slipped after the announcement, extending a slide of more than 25 percent from a June record high, as analysts questioned how long the AI boom can sustain this pace and trimmed forecasts on currency effects. Detailed results, including divisional breakdowns, are due October 29.
How a memory shortage becomes record profit
Memory chips are commodities with unusually sharp cycles. When supply is plentiful, prices fall quickly and manufacturers can struggle to cover the cost of new fabrication plants. When demand rises faster than supply, the same factories produce extraordinary profit, because each additional increment of price falls largely to the bottom line. The figures above describe the second kind of market, with average selling prices for the main memory categories moving strongly in one quarter.
Artificial intelligence data centers are driving the current imbalance. Training and running large models requires vast amounts of conventional memory alongside specialized high bandwidth memory, which stacks memory dies close to a processor so that data can move faster and with less energy. Building capacity for either product takes years, requires scarce equipment and must be planned long before final demand is certain. That lag is why a shortage can persist even when every major producer understands that prices are historically high.
Why high bandwidth memory is the contested ground
High bandwidth memory has become the strategic segment because supply is tighter and qualification with customers is more demanding. A producer that wins a place in a leading accelerator platform gains not only volume but also evidence that its technology meets the performance and reliability standards of the most demanding buyers. Market share in this segment is therefore watched as a sign of technological position, not merely of sales.
The expectation that the imbalance lasts for an extended period changes investment behavior. Customers sign longer agreements and compete for allocation, producers accelerate expansion plans, and governments treat memory supply as part of industrial policy. Those responses can eventually create the next surplus, which is the central risk in every memory upcycle: the industry builds for today’s shortage at exactly the scale that produces tomorrow’s glut.
Why the share price can fall on record numbers
Equity markets price the future, not the quarter just reported. If investors believe earnings are near a cyclical peak, they may value a record profit cautiously, discounting the possibility that prices normalize before new capacity arrives. Currency movements add another layer for a South Korean exporter whose products are priced in a global market while many costs are incurred at home. A weaker or stronger won can change reported results and the returns foreign investors actually receive.
The detailed results due later this month will be examined for the split between divisions, the pace of price increases and any guidance on capital spending. Those lines will tell investors whether management sees the shortage as a durable platform for investment or as a peak to be harvested carefully. Record profit settles the present; the market argument is entirely about duration.
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