The conglomerate, spanning chips to smartphones, is experiencing a rise in both volume and profits as customers, particularly cloud service providers, ramp up orders for high-bandwidth memory and other chips utilized in data centers to support artificial intelligence services.
In pre-market trading in Seoul on Tuesday, Samsung shares saw a 5% rise, recovering from their February highs. This development eased some concerns that the US-Iran tensions might hinder spending on energy-intensive AI systems.
Samsung’s preliminary operating profit for the March quarter totaled 57.2 trillion won ($37.9 billion), marking a 755% increase and setting a new record, in contrast to analysts’ average estimate of 39.3 trillion won. Revenue also rose to 133 trillion won, surpassing the average expectation of 116.8 trillion won. The company will release a detailed financial report later this month, which will include divisional data and net profits.
Alongside SK Hynix Inc. and Micron Technology Inc., Samsung dominates the global memory market. This trio has constrained the supply of conventional memory by increasingly focusing production on high-bandwidth memory essential for Nvidia Corp.’s AI accelerators.
Samsung’s operating profits for the first quarter eclipsed the 43.6 trillion won achieved in 2025, greatly outperforming previous quarters.
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According to government statistics, South Korea’s semiconductor exports—a key indicator of global tech demand—rose 151.4% to a record $32.8 billion in March.
Analysts largely dismiss concerns related to AI optimization by products such as Google’s TurboQuant or Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, remaining optimistic about the outlook for South Korea’s largest corporation.
A report published on April 2 by Citigroup analysts Peter Lee and Jayden Oh indicated that the global average selling price of DRAM increased by 64% in the first quarter compared to the previous quarter. Citigroup forecasts an annual operating profit of 310 trillion won, or $206 billion, for Samsung in 2026, citing anticipated high demand for AI inference to sustain pricing.
After facing years of challenges and delays that allowed competitor SK Hynix to capture the lucrative market, Samsung became the first to commercially ship next-generation HBM4 to customers earlier this year. Last year, Samsung’s stock surged by over 120%, while SK Hynix’s stock jumped by more than 270%.
During Nvidia’s GTC presentation last month, the Suwon-based company also introduced its advanced HBM4E chip. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang noted that Groq 3 processors will be manufactured using Samsung’s cutting-edge 4-nanometer technology. Furthermore, Samsung has entered into an agreement to supply Advanced Micro Devices Inc. with HBM4 chips.
