Samsung Posts Record $80B Profit on AI Chip Boom
Samsung posts a record $80 billion Q3 operating profit as AI memory chip demand surges, with its chip division earning nearly all of the total profit.
Samsung Electronics has posted the biggest quarterly profit in its history. The world's largest memory chipmaker said on Thursday, October 29, 2026 that its operating profit for the July-to-September quarter reached 107.4 trillion won, about $80 billion. That is nearly nine times the 12.2 trillion won it made in the same quarter a year earlier, and it is the company's fourth straight quarter of record earnings.
Chips did almost all the work
Almost the entire profit came from one place: semiconductors. Samsung's Device Solutions chip division earned 106.5 trillion won in operating profit on revenue of 147.1 trillion won, topping 100 trillion won for the first time and accounting for about 99 percent of the company's total profit. The driver is memory for artificial intelligence. Demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server DRAM has climbed sharply as companies keep spending on AI data centers, while tight supply has pushed memory prices higher. Memory revenue alone reached 140.7 trillion won, up 427 percent from a year earlier. Samsung said the chip supply shortage will deepen next year, echoing a similar warning from rival SK Hynix, which reported strong earnings of its own on Wednesday.
Phones and appliances went the other way
Samsung's finished-product business tells a very different story. The Device Experience division, which makes smartphones, TVs and home appliances, posted an operating loss of 800 billion won, its second quarterly loss in a row. The phone business lost 600 billion won, partly because the memory chips inside phones have become much more expensive to buy, while TVs and appliances lost 200 billion won. Total company revenue still rose 127 percent from a year earlier to 195.3 trillion won, and net profit jumped more than fivefold to 75.1 trillion won. Samsung also announced a 30 trillion won quarterly dividend, or 4,601 won per share, as part of shareholder returns of up to 110 trillion won.
Why it matters
Samsung's result is a clear sign of where the money in AI is flowing right now: not just to the companies building chatbots and AI services, but to the companies making the memory those services run on. Its quarterly profit now tops the earnings of Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta, the very customers whose AI data center spending is driving the boom. There is a note of caution, though. Samsung's shares fell more than 5 percent in Seoul trading on Thursday despite the record result, a sign that investors are still unsure how long the AI spending boom, and the memory price surge behind it, can last. If demand cools, the same tight market lifting Samsung today could turn quickly.
Sources
• Reuters - https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/samsung-posts-record-profit-q3-ai-chip-boom • Yonhap News Agency - https://m-en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20261029002651320?section=economy-finance/economy • Korea JoongAng Daily - https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/business/samsungs-record-804b-profit-beats-forecasts-and-tops-microsoft-alphabet-and-meta-as-chip-supplier-outearns-its-ai-customers/12944226