Samsung posts record $80bn quarterly profit on AI memory demand

Samsung Electronics made a record operating profit of 107.4 trillion won (about $80bn) in the third quarter, the company said on Thursday. Demand for the memory chips used in AI data centres kept rising.

The figure confirms the preliminary results Samsung published earlier this month, when it said profit was about nine times higher than a year earlier.

Revenue also hit a new high of 195.3 trillion won, up 14% from the previous quarter, according to Samsung’s full results.

Almost all of that profit came from chips. Samsung’s semiconductor business earned 106.5 trillion won on revenue of 147.1 trillion won. Its memory unit set new quarterly records for both sales and profit, thanks to strong server demand and higher prices.

Sales of HBM4, the latest generation of high-bandwidth memory that sits alongside AI processors, grew significantly during the quarter, the company said. Its contract chipmaking arm also did better, helped by sales of the base chips used in HBM.

Other parts of the business struggled. The mobile and networks division, which makes Galaxy phones, posted an operating loss of 0.6 trillion won as costs rose, while TVs and home appliances lost 0.2 trillion won. The display unit made a profit of 1.1 trillion won.

To keep up with demand, Samsung spent 29 trillion won on new plants and equipment in the quarter, more than double the previous three months. It expects to spend about 84.4 trillion won across the whole year.

Shareholders will also benefit. Samsung declared a quarterly dividend of 4,601 won per share, worth 30 trillion won in total. It also repeated its plan to return 90 to 110 trillion won to shareholders this year.

For the fourth quarter, Samsung expects memory sales to keep growing as new CPU and GPU platforms reach the market. It also forecasts double-digit revenue growth at its foundry business.

Rival SK Hynix also reported record profit this week and said it expects the memory shortage to last until 2030.