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Samsung Electronics’ flag flies outside the company’s headquarters in Seoul’s Seocho District. (Choi Hyeon-su/Hankyoreh)

Samsung Electronics ushered in a new era with a record 20 trillion won in operating profits for the final quarter of 2025, becoming the first South Korean conglomerate to achieve that milestone.
 
This boosts expectations that the AI-fueled semiconductor super cycle will enable the company to reach a record yearly operating profit of 100 trillion won in 2026.
 
On Thursday, the conglomerate announced a consolidated operating profit of approximately 20 trillion won (approximately US$13.7 billion) in its earnings guidance for the fourth quarter of 2025, based on K-IFRS. This marks the largest quarterly profit of any Korean company in history, also indicating a threefold increase compared to the same period in the previous year.
 
Until now, the highest quarterly operating profit recorded by the company was 17.6 trillion won in the third quarter of 2018. Seven years later, Samsung has blown that number out of the water. 

The share price for Samsung Electrics is shown on a monitor at the trading room of Woori Bank in downtown Seoul on Jan. 8, 2026. (Jung Yong-il/Hankyoreh)

 
Even up through the second quarter of 2025, Samsung Electronics saw its operating profits dwindle to 4.7 trillion, largely due to the lagging semiconductor industry. However, it made a recovery in the third quarter with a solid 12.2 trillion won in operating profits, and saw a quarter-on-quarter surge of 64% in the fourth quarter.
 
The earnings surprise exceeded market forecasts (18.5 trillion won) by 8%. Sales during that period also reached 93 trillion won, up 22.7% year-on-year and 8.1% quarter-on-quarter.
 
Samsung’s semiconductor business division is seen as the driver of this blockbuster quarter. The company disclosed preliminary figures in its announcement, but did not release division-specific earnings.
 
The financial sector estimates that Samsung’s memory chip division alone — the bread and butter of its semiconductor business — generated an operating profit of 18 trillion won.

 
Estimates for divisions unrelated to chips were much lower, with the display division forecast to see 2 trillion won in operating profits, the finished product division (DX), which encompasses smartphones, TV and home appliances, expected to see 1 trillion won in profits, and the automotive electronics and audio subsidiary Harman only 300 billion won. This indicates that nearly 90% of the total operating profit came from memory semiconductors alone.
 
This can be attributed to the astronomical investments by overseas Big Tech companies building AI data centers, which have intensified supply shortages not only for high-value-added AI memory (HBM), but also for general-purpose memory like DRAM, driving memory chip prices to record highs.
 
“Memory makers like Samsung are diverting production away from everyday tech to build more lucrative high-end chips for AI giants like Nvidia Corp. amid a global rush to rollout massive data centers. That’s created a severe shortage in standard memory for laptops and servers,” Bloomberg assessed Thursday.

Samsung Electronics’ average selling price (ASP) for DRAM in the fourth quarter of 2025 surged by more than 30% compared to the previous quarter.
 
Samsung Electronics’ prospects for 2026 are bright, as it is likely that memory prices will remain strong in 2026. Global technology market research firm Counterpoint predicts that DRAM (DDR5) prices will rise 40% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2026 and rally an additional 20% in the second quarter.
 
Not only does Samsung Electronics house the largest production capacity among global memory manufacturers, but its previously underperforming high-bandwidth memory (HBM) business is also expected to gain momentum, particularly with its 6th generation product (HBM4), as shipments to Nvidia ramp up.
 
Samsung Electronics announced that its estimated annual operating earnings for 2025 was 43.5 trillion won, with sales reaching 332.8 trillion — the highest in the company’s history. The operating profit was the fourth highest on record. Financial markets estimate that the company’s annual operating profit this year will exceed 100 trillion won.
 
Samsung Electronics is scheduled to hold an investor briefing on Jan. 29 to announce performance by business division and its finalized earnings figures.

By Park Jong-o, staff reporter

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