Samsung Projects Eightfold Profit Leap as AI Chip Demand Soars — Update

2026-04-07 06:31:39

By Kwanwoo Jun

Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest memory-chip maker, forecast a more than eightfold jump in first-quarter operating profit, signaling continued record earnings amid the artificial-intelligence boom despite uncertainties fueled by the Middle East conflict.

The stronger-than-expected quarterly profit estimate comes as global tech companies rush to secure advanced chips for AI data centers, boosting memory prices and, in turn, margins in Samsung’s flagship semiconductor business. The company expects the momentum to continue.

Most analysts expect the company’s core semiconductor business to have driven the strong earnings, supported by higher-than-expected prices for DRAM and NAND–the two main types of memory chips–on solid demand for AI infrastructure buildout.

In preliminary results Tuesday, the South Korean technology company said its operating profit likely reached 57.200 trillion won, equivalent to $37.91 billion, for the January-March period.

That would be 755% higher than the year-earlier figure, topping a FactSet-compiled consensus estimate of 39.140 trillion won. It would also be nearly triple the company’s previous record of around 20 trillion won set in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Quarterly revenue is forecast to have risen 68% to a record 133.000 trillion won, Samsung said.

The AI chip boom is set to fuel a run of record quarterly operating profits for Samsung this year, Meritz Securities analysts Kim Sun-woo and Woo Seo-hyun said. Ahead of the preliminary results, they forecast operating profit of 73 trillion won in the second quarter, 90 trillion won in the third quarter and 104 trillion won in the fourth quarter.

In a sign of strong investor optimism about the company’s growth outlook, its shares have climbed more than 60% this year despite a recent correction triggered by the Middle East conflict. The stock rose nearly 5% in early Seoul trading, moving closer to its all-time high set earlier this year.

Last month, Samsung said it planned to invest more than $70 billion in facilities and research and development this year to strengthen its memory, foundry and advanced-packaging capabilities, ramping up spending to solidify its leadership in AI-chip manufacturing.

In a major win for its U.S. foundry business, the company last year signed a $16.5 billion multiyear deal with Tesla. It expects to begin mass producing AI chips for the U.S. EV maker at its Texas plant in the second half of next year, with Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk saying the Samsung facility will produce Tesla’s next-generation AI6 chip.

Samsung is also manufacturing Groq 3 language processing units–the latest AI inference chips–for Nvidia, with shipments due to start in the second half of 2026, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at an AI conference in San Jose, Calif., last month.

Samsung in February said it became the world’s first to mass produce the most advanced high-bandwidth memory chips, known as HBM4, and plans to provide upgraded HBM4E samples later this year. It also expanded ties with Advanced Micro Devices in March, signing a preliminary agreement to supply HBM4 chips for AMD’s next-generation AI accelerators.

Samsung is scheduled to release full quarterly results, including a breakdown of earnings by business segment, later this month.

Write to Kwanwoo Jun at kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 06, 2026 21:55 ET (01:55 GMT)

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