Driven by the surge in AI demand, Samsung's Q2 operating profit is expected to skyrocket 18 times

According to a report by Reuters, benefiting from the ongoing tight supply of memory triggered by the rapid development of AI and a significant increase in chip prices, Samsung Electronics' operating profit for the second quarter of this year is expected to surge approximately 18 times year-on-year, reaching about 86 trillion won (approximately 56.35 billion USD). This will mark the company's third consecutive quarter of setting a historical high for operating profit. Analysts point out that, in addition to high bandwidth memory (HBM), the popularity of complex applications such as Agentic AI has also greatly driven strong demand for traditional DRAM and NAND products, and it is expected that the supply-demand imbalance in the memory market will last at least until next year.

Despite the strong performance expectations, analysts warn that due to Samsung's previous agreement to allocate 10.5% of the operating profit from its semiconductor division as special bonuses for employees to avoid strikes, the timing of this substantial reserve may cause the actual reported profit for the second quarter to be slightly lower than market expectations. Additionally, affected by the rising costs of memory components, Samsung's mobile business is facing severe pressure on profit margins, and the industry expects that it may need to further raise prices for terminal products such as smartphones in the second half of the year to alleviate cost pressures.