Samsung guides to a record 89.4 trillion won quarterly profit on AI memory demand

Samsung Electronics guided to about 89.4 trillion won in operating profit for the second quarter of 2026, a nearly 19-fold increase from 4.68 trillion won a year earlier. If confirmed, it would be the largest quarterly operating profit ever reported by a technology company, the company said in preliminary earnings guidance issued July 7.

The guided figure surpasses recent quarterly records set by Nvidia and Apple, a sign of how sharply demand for AI-data-center memory has swung the semiconductor market back in Samsung’s favor. Guided sales came in around 171 trillion won, up 129.3 percent year over year, implying an operating margin near 52 percent.

Samsung attributed the surge primarily to its memory-semiconductor business, citing high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, server DRAM and advanced storage sold into AI data centers. Memory pricing is expected to rise 40 to 60 percent in the quarter on HBM demand, the company said.

The numbers are preliminary and reflect only headline figures; Samsung does not break out divisional results or its full financial statements in this early guidance, so the precise memory contribution and any one-off items remain unconfirmed. The company will report detailed second-quarter results and hold its earnings call on July 30, 2026.

The guidance sharpens a question hanging over the sector: how long the AI-memory boom lasts. HBM pricing and data-center buildout are driving the record, and both will be tested as new supply comes online through the year.