Samsung profit surges 160% as chip business bounces back from brutal slump

Samsung Electronics reported a rebound in earnings on Thursday, with operating profit more than doubling from the previous quarter, bolstered by strong memory chip demand from artificial intelligence servers. 

Here are Samsung’s third-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:

Revenue: 86.1 trillion Korean won ($60.5 billion) vs. 85.93 trillion won Operating profit: 12.2 trillion won vs. 11.25 trillion won

The South Korean technology giant’s quarterly revenue rose 8.85% from a year earlier, while its first-quarter operating profit climbed 32.9% in the same period. 

Samsung shares popped nearly 4% in early trading in Asia.

The earnings represent a bounce back from the June quarter, which had been weighed down by a massive slump in Samsung’s chip business. Operating profit increased by 160% compared to June, while revenue increased by 15.5% over the same period. 

Samsung Electronics, South Korea’s largest company by market capitalization, is a leading provider of memory chips, semiconductor foundry services and smartphones.

The company’s earnings were lifted by its chip business, which saw operating profit increase over tenfold from the June quarter on strong demand for AI servers.

Samsung predicted that AI chip demand would continue to grow, echoing sentiments from memory rival SK Hynix, which reported earnings on Wednesday.

“We expect data center companies to continuously expand their hardware investment because of the ongoing competition to secure AI infrastructure,” a Samsung executive said during an earnings call.

“Therefore, our AI-related server demand keeps growing, and this demand significantly exceeds industry supply,” he added.

Samsung’s chip business reported a 19% increase in sales from the June quarter, with its memory business setting an all-time high for quarterly sales, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence.

Chip revenue increased to 33.1 trillion Korean won, up 13% from last year, while operating profit rose 81% to 7.0 trillion Korean won over the same period.

Also known as its Device Solutions division, Samsung’s chip business encompasses memory chips, semiconductor design and its foundry units.

Samsung said the unit benefited from a favorable price environment, while quarterly revenues reached a record high on expanded sales of its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips — a type of memory used in artificial intelligence computing.

The company has found itself lagging behind memory rival SK Hynix in the HBM market, after it was slow to secure major contracts with leading AI chip Nvidia. However, in a positive sign for the company, it reportedly passed Nvidia’s qualification tests for an advanced HBM chip last month.

A report from Counterpoint Research earlier this month found that Samsung had reclaimed the top spot in the memory market ahead of SK Hynix in the third quarter after falling behind its competitor for the first time the quarter prior. 

MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC that Samsung’s third-quarter performance was a clear result of a broader “memory market boom” and rising prices for general-purpose memory.

Heading into 2026, Samsung said its memory business will focus on the mass production of its next-generation HBM technology, HBM4.

Samsung’s mobile experience and network businesses, tasked with developing and selling smartphones, tablets, wearables and other devices, reported a rise in both sales and profit.

The unit posted an operating profit of 3.6 trillion won in the third quarter, up about 28% from the same period last year. 

The company said earnings were driven by robust flagship smartphone sales, including the launch of its Galaxy Z Fold7 device.

Samsung forecasted that the rapid growth of the AI industry would open up new market opportunities for both its devices and chip businesses in the current quarter.