{"id":308931,"date":"2026-01-29T00:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/308931\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T00:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:50:07","slug":"samsungs-profit-triples-beating-estimates-as-ai-chip-demand-fuels-memory-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/308931\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung\u2019s profit triples, beating estimates as AI chip demand fuels memory shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Headquarters of Samsung in Mountain View, California, on October 28, 2018. <\/p>\n<p>Smith Collection\/gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Samsung Electronics shares rose 2.4% Thursday after the company reported an over threefold surge in fourth-quarter operating profits, hitting a new record and beating analysts&#8217; estimates, as a memory chip shortage and strong demand for artificial intelligence servers lifted earnings.<\/p>\n<p>Here are Samsung&#8217;s fourth-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Revenue<\/strong>: 93.8 trillion Korean won ($65.58 billion) vs. 93.318 trillion won\u00a0expected<\/li>\n<li><strong>Operating profit:<\/strong> 20.1 trillion won vs. 20.018 trillion won expected<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The South Korean technology giant&#8217;s quarterly revenue rose\u00a0about 24% from a year earlier to hit a new record. Meanwhile, its operating profit climbed over 200% year over year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The profits surpassed Samsung&#8217;s long-standing record of 17.6 trillion won set in the third quarter of 2018, while matching Samsung&#8217;s own <a href=\"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/global\/samsung-electronics-announces-earnings-guidance-for-fourth-quarter-2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">guidance <\/a>of around 20 trillion won.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Samsung, South Korea&#8217;s largest company by market capitalization, is a leading provider of memory chips, semiconductor foundry services and smartphones.<\/p>\n<p>The company said in its earnings report that its memory business had helped drive earnings, setting all-time highs for quarterly revenue and operating profit, driven by an overall market price surge, sales of high-bandwidth memory and other high-value-added products. <\/p>\n<p>High-bandwidth memory, or HBM, is a type of memory used in chipsets for AI data centers, and Samsung has shifted more focus to the technology over the past year, under its Device Solutions (DS) Division.<\/p>\n<p>Makers of AI chipsets, such as Nvidia, have been clamoring for limited supplies of HBM, with demand outpacing supply.<\/p>\n<p>As memory companies prioritize capacity to meet that lucrative demand, it has contributed to a shortage across the broader market, pushing up prices of chips used in personal computers and mobile devices.<\/p>\n<p>This has been a boon for memory giants like Samsung as well as its rival SK Hynix, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/01\/28\/sk-hynix-smashes-earnings-estimates-as-ai-memory-demand-drives-record-profit.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported record earnings<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Looking ahead to Q1 2026, the DS Division expects AI and server demand to continue increasing, leading to more opportunities for structural growth,&#8221; the company said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In response, the Division will continue to focus on profitability via a strong emphasis on high-performance products,&#8221; it added.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"headline0\"\/>Smartphones <\/p>\n<p>Samsung&#8217;s mobile experience and networks businesses, tasked with developing and selling smartphones, tablets, wearables and other devices, posted weaker results in the fourth quarter. <\/p>\n<p>Operating profit at the division fell to 1.9 trillion won, down 9.5% from a year earlier and over 45% from the previous quarter. <\/p>\n<p>The company said the losses were due to &#8220;reduced launch effects&#8221; from new smartphone models and intense market competition.<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2026, Samsung said it plans to strengthen its AI smartphone push by introducing what it calls &#8220;Agentic AI experiences&#8221; with the launch of its upcoming Galaxy S26 series. <\/p>\n<p>Samsung said it also aims to ensure sustained profitability through flagship sales expansion, resource optimization and efforts to strengthen supply stability amid global competitive pressures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Headquarters of Samsung in Mountain View, California, on October 28, 2018. Smith Collection\/gado | Archive Photos | Getty&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,79,207,6738,100214,18,19,17,13188,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-308931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-business-news","13":"tag-earnings","14":"tag-earnings-announcements","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-samsung-electronics-co-ltd","19":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115975646257761506","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}