Samsung eyes $80B quarterly profit as memory buyers pay the price
AI demand fattens chipmakers' margins while cheaper PCs and phones become harder to produce profitably
Samsung Electronics anticipates a surge in third-quarter revenue, with the company projecting a more than doubling of earnings and operating profit reaching nearly nine times the level of the previous year. This upward trend is attributed to the AI infrastructure boom, which is driving demand for memory chips utilized in datacenter servers and GPUs.
While Samsung's full earnings are due for release later this month, the guidance indicates sales between ₩194 trillion and ₩196 trillion (approximately $145 billion) for the quarter concluding September 30, 2026. This marks a more than doubling from ₩86.1 trillion ($63 billion) recorded in the same period last year.
Operating profit is expected to range between ₩107.3 trillion and ₩107.5 trillion (about $80 billion), a significant increase from ₩12.2 trillion ($9 billion) reported for Q3 2025, roughly an 8.8 times boost compared to the prior year. The guidance note does not detail performance breakdowns by business division. The surge in demand for memory, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used alongside AI processors, is expected to be a key driver.
The memory demand for AI applications is contributing to profit growth across the semiconductor industry.
Analyst Gartner forecasts that the sector will generate $1.6 trillion in revenue during 2026, nearly double the revenue seen in 2025. Micron, another rival chipmaker, recently posted similar gains, and SK hynix, the other major Korean memory manufacturer, is anticipated to report comparable results when disclosing its own quarterly figures later this month.
While this boom benefits memory manufacturers, it is causing challenges for buyers of everyday electronics. The shift towards more lucrative AI products is limiting supply for PCs, smartphones, and other devices, leading to an increase in component prices. As previously reported by The Register, rising component costs are pricing budget PCs out of the market.
US sales in the budget PC segment fell by 18.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, with forecasted average PC selling prices expected to rise by up to 12 percent by December. Smartphone manufacturers are also facing similar pressures, with budget devices becoming increasingly difficult to produce profitably. Earlier this year, Samsung had warned that the memory supply crunch was expected to deepen in 2027 and could persist through 2028, leaving buyers with little to smile about.
Written by urgent.news from The Register Science's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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