Key Points
- Samsung’s fourth-quarter operating profit tripled to a new record of 20.1 trillion won.
- The surge was driven by soaring memory chip prices due to the AI boom.
- The company’s memory chip division set its own all-time highs for revenue and profit.
- The high demand for HBM for AI has created a shortage of other types of memory chips.
Samsung Electronics just posted a massive surge in its fourth-quarter profits, with the company’s operating profit tripling to a new all-time high. The South Korean tech giant is riding a wave of soaring memory chip prices, which have been driven to record levels by the insatiable demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The company’s operating profit for the quarter came in at 20.1 trillion won ($13.9 billion), a jump of over 200% from a year earlier and beating analysts’ expectations. Revenue also hit a new record, rising 24% to 93.8 trillion won.
The star of the show was undoubtedly Samsung’s memory chip business. The company said the division set its own all-time highs for both quarterly revenue and operating profit. The boom in AI has created a massive demand for a special type of memory called high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, and Samsung has been shifting its production to meet that need.
This has had a ripple effect across the entire market. As memory companies prioritize the lucrative HBM market, it has created a shortage of the regular memory chips used in smartphones and PCs, pushing up prices for everyone.
While the chip business is booming, Samsung’s smartphone division had a weaker quarter. Operating profit at the unit fell, which the company blamed on a lack of new model launches and intense competition.
Looking ahead, Samsung expects the strong demand for AI and server chips to continue. The company is also planning to strengthen its push into AI smartphones with the launch of its upcoming Galaxy S26 series.
