Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), the world's largest memory chipmaker, reported preliminary operating profit of 57.2 trillion won ($41.8 billion) for the first quarter, the company said in a regulatory filing Monday. The figure surged 755% from a year earlier. The company achieved its highest-ever quarterly operating profit. Preliminary revenue for the first quarter came in at 133 trillion won, up 68% year-on-year.
Samsung's quarterly operating profit exceeding 50 trillion won is an unprecedented record. According to FnGuide, the consensus estimate for Samsung's first-quarter operating profit stood at 43.7636 trillion won based on the most recent one-month average. The preliminary results exceeded expectations by approximately 13 trillion won.
The biggest contributor was the semiconductor (DS, or Device Solutions) division. Securities industry analysts estimated the DS division's operating profit in the high 40 trillion won range, accounting for close to 80–90% of the total.
Analysts attribute the record DS division operating profit to memory chip price hikes and a favorable exchange rate environment. In particular, average selling prices surged more than 80% across the entire DRAM product lineup — from consumer-facing mobile and PC DRAM to server-oriented DRAM such as Graphics Double Data Rate (GDDR). Observers also noted that price increases could grow even larger as shipment volumes expand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a high-value-added DRAM product whose revenue contribution remains modest for now. NAND flash is also estimated to have recorded ASP increases in the high 70% range.
Kim Seon-woo, an analyst at Meritz Securities, said of Samsung's first-quarter preliminary results Monday, "Beyond the fact that these earnings represent an all-time high of an unimaginable absolute scale, it should also be noted that the current position in the memory cycle is only approaching mid-cycle." Kim estimated the DS division's operating profit at 52.4 trillion won, with memory contributing 54 trillion won and the LSI and foundry businesses posting a combined loss of 1.6 trillion won.
Samsung is expected to leverage its strong memory pricing negotiating power to sign long-term contracts with its largest customers — Big Tech companies — across a wide range of products. The company is reportedly pursuing five-year long-term agreements (LTAs) with Big Tech firms including Nvidia, Google and Microsoft covering HBM and commodity DRAM supply. With Broadcom signing a long-term contract Monday (local time) for the development of Google's custom chip (ASIC), the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), Samsung is also considered a leading candidate to supply HBM products installed in TPUs.
Meanwhile, Samsung announced in February that it would deliver 12-layer sixth-generation HBM (HBM4) products to customers, with follow-up HBM4E samples planned for shipment in the second half of 2026. Samsung is also expanding HBM4 production by adding dedicated sixth-generation process (1c) production lines at its Pyeongtaek campus. The P4 facility is configured around 1c process lines, and the P5 facility has been confirmed to have pre-ordered extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment from ASML needed for the 1c process.