Samsung's profit goes up 9 times. Making computer chips baby!

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Samsung is forecasting a record $80 billion quarterly profit on AI chip demand

The South Korean chipmaker projected a nearly ninefold jump in third-quarter operating profit, the first time any tech company has topped 100 trillion won in a single quarter

By Cris Tolomia, Quartz Media

Updated October 8, 2026

Samsung is forecasting a record $80 billion quarterly profit on AI chip demand

JUNG YEON-JE / Getty Images

Samsung Electronics projected third-quarter operating profit of approximately 107.4 trillion won ($80.17 billion), a figure that would mark the first time any technology company has posted quarterly operating profit above 100 trillion won, according to Reuters.

The estimate, covering the July-September period, puts operating profit at roughly nine times the 12.17 trillion won Samsung recorded in the same quarter a year ago. The company said third-quarter revenue would reach approximately 195 trillion won, up 127% year on year. Both figures would be company records.

The figure cleared the 106.1 trillion won consensus forecast tracked by LSEG, according to Reuters. Samsung said it will release a full breakdown of results by business division on October 29.

The result extends Samsung's streak of quarterly profit records to four, reflecting a widening gap between AI-driven memory demand and the industry's ability to meet it. Samsung and Micron Technology have both said they anticipate the gap between supply and demand to continue through 2028, according to Reuters.

Samsung's memory chip operations are expected to account for the bulk of the improvement, according to Reuters. Conventional DRAM and NAND shortages, combined with surging orders for high-bandwidth memory in AI server deployments, have pushed chip prices upward. According to Reuters, analyst Douglas Kim of Douglas Research Advisory put Samsung's HBM bit shipments at roughly 50% higher quarter over quarter in the third quarter.

The chip boom has not benefited all of Samsung's businesses equally. According to Reuters, Samsung's mobile unit is estimated to have recorded an operating loss in the quarter that came in above $1 billion, while the foundry division is also projected to stay in the red, with rising input costs weighing on the company's consumer-oriented businesses.

Samsung shares edged down 0.2% in Thursday morning trade, while the broader KOSPI index fell 0.5%.

The company's second-quarter results, reported in July, showed operating profit of 89.49 trillion won, itself a record at the time, on revenue of 171.5 trillion won. That quarter, Samsung's Device Solutions division posted 89.2 trillion won in operating profit, driven by AI server demand, while the mobile and networks unit recorded an operating loss of 700 billion won as component costs rose across the industry. Samsung said at the time that supply tightness would carry into 2027, and that a growing number of customers were pursuing longer-term procurement contracts to secure capacity.