Samsung Electronics estimated its fourth-quarter operating profit at 20 trillion won, a 208 percent surge from a year earlier, driven by soaring memory chip prices amid high AI demand. Sales are projected at 93 trillion won, marking a quarterly record. The figures exceed analyst expectations and highlight a chip market supercycle.
Samsung Electronics announced on January 8 its preliminary earnings guidance for the fourth quarter of 2025, estimating an operating profit of 20 trillion won ($13.8 billion). This represents a 208.2 percent increase from 6.5 trillion won a year earlier, marking the first time the company's quarterly profit has exceeded 20 trillion won. Sales are projected at 93 trillion won, up 22.7 percent and surpassing the previous quarterly record of 86 trillion won set in the prior period.
The results outpace brokerage estimates of 90.6 trillion won in sales and 17.8 trillion won in operating profit. The surge is attributed to a chip market supercycle, with global demand for AI chips driving memory prices higher. Korea Investment & Securities analyst Chae Min-sook noted, “The biggest driver of Samsung’s strong earnings was the rise in memory chip prices,” adding, “We estimate that the average selling prices of both DRAM and NAND rose by roughly 40 percent from the previous quarter.”
The Device Solutions (DS) division, encompassing semiconductors, is expected to contribute 17.2 trillion won, nearly 80 percent of the total and a sharp rise from 7 trillion won in the third quarter. Non-memory operations also narrowed losses. In contrast, the Mobile Experience division posted about 1.9 trillion won, down 8 percent year-over-year, while the TV and Appliance division anticipates a 100 billion won loss, partly due to higher component costs.
For full-year 2025, operating profit reached 43.53 trillion won, up 33 percent, with sales at 332.77 trillion won, a 10.6 percent increase. Looking ahead, analysts forecast 123 trillion won in profit for 2026, bolstered by high-bandwidth memory (HBM) sales tripling to 26 trillion won. Positive developments include talks with Qualcomm for 2-nanometer chip production—potentially resuming after a five-year hiatus—and a $16.5 billion order from Tesla in July for AI6 chips. Detailed earnings will be released during an investor call on January 29.
