SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics set a new record in global corporate history Tuesday, reporting a preliminary second-quarter operating profit of 89.4 trillion Korean won, or roughly $58 billion, a figure that surpassed the highest single-quarter profits ever posted by Nvidia and Apple, driven by an unprecedented surge in memory semiconductor prices tied to the global artificial intelligence buildout.
Samsung’s preliminary results, announced Tuesday, exceeded Nvidia’s previous record of $53.5 billion, or approximately 81.9 trillion won, recorded from February through April of this year. The figure also surpassed Apple’s own all-time high of $50.85 billion, or roughly 77.8 trillion won, posted during the October-to-December quarter of last year. The only company in recent history to have posted a larger single-quarter operating profit than Samsung’s latest results is Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant Aramco, which recorded $86.5 billion in operating profit during the second quarter of 2022.
The scale of Samsung’s profitability improvement was equally striking. The company’s operating profit margin, the ratio of operating profit to total revenue, reached 52 percent during the quarter, meaning roughly 520 won of profit was generated for every 1,000 won of products sold. That figure represents nearly four times Samsung’s overall operating profit margin of 13.1 percent for all of last year. Samsung’s second-quarter profit alone was more than double the company’s entire operating profit for all of 2025, which totaled 43 trillion won.
The results were driven almost entirely by Samsung’s Device Solutions division, which produces memory semiconductors. While the company’s preliminary announcement did not break down results by individual business division, securities industry sources estimate the memory division alone generated operating profit in the range of 90 trillion won, with an operating margin of approximately 80 percent.
The surge stems from a rapid escalation in memory chip prices over the past two quarters. According to figures cited in Samsung’s announcement, prices for DRAM and other memory products jumped more than 80 percent in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the previous quarter, and rose a further 50 percent in the second quarter compared with the first, continuing a steep upward trajectory. The price surge has been driven by soaring global demand for high-value memory products, including server DRAM and high-bandwidth memory, as companies worldwide continue expanding investment in artificial intelligence data center infrastructure.
Industry analysts anticipate that DRAM prices will continue climbing through the second half of 2026, with some forecasts suggesting the memory sector has entered a long-term boom period often referred to within the industry as a “super cycle.” Samsung is positioned to benefit disproportionately from that trend given its scale within the industry. The company’s DRAM production capacity stands at between 650,000 and 700,000 wafers per month, more than double that of Micron Technology, the third-largest producer at roughly 300,000 wafers per month, and roughly 20 percent higher than second-place SK Hynix, which produces approximately 550,000 wafers per month.
Securities industry projections cited in Samsung’s announcement suggest the company’s full-year operating profit for 2026 could surge 790 percent compared with the previous year, reaching approximately 380 trillion won, with further growth to roughly 570 trillion won projected for 2027. Combined, those projections would put Samsung’s cumulative operating profit over the next two years at close to 1,000 trillion won.
Despite the historic results, some analysts have raised concerns about the sustainability of the current memory boom. Potential risks cited include the possibility that the AI-driven super cycle could reach its peak sooner than currently anticipated, along with broader concerns about oversupply eventually emerging across the memory semiconductor market as manufacturers expand capacity to meet current demand. Additional questions have been raised about whether directing a significant share of current profits toward employee performance bonuses could constrain Samsung’s future research and development and equipment investment capabilities.
Samsung’s performance outside its memory business painted a considerably more mixed picture. The company’s System LSI and foundry divisions, which handle contract semiconductor manufacturing, are estimated to have posted a combined operating loss of approximately 2 trillion won during the quarter, with analysts continuing to point to low utilization rates and a competitiveness gap in advanced manufacturing processes relative to Taiwan’s TSMC as ongoing challenges for that side of the business.
Samsung’s Device Experience division, which includes its smartphone and home appliance businesses, also showed significant weakness. The smartphone division is expected to post its first-ever quarterly operating loss, estimated at approximately 1 trillion won, a result attributed to the sharp rise in memory chip prices, a key input cost for smartphone production. The home appliance and television division is similarly estimated to have returned to an operating loss of around 200 billion won after only a single profitable quarter, a downturn analysts attributed to weak global demand and rising raw material costs linked to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The stark divergence between Samsung’s booming memory business and its struggling smartphone and consumer electronics divisions has fueled internal labor tension over how the company distributes its performance bonuses. Under the terms of the company’s first-half Target Achievement Incentive payments, scheduled for distribution Tuesday, employees in the memory division are set to receive 100 percent of their monthly base salary as a bonus, while workers in the smartphone, television and home appliance divisions will receive only 50 percent. The disparity has generated visible frustration among employees. On Tuesday, an image depicting a funeral wreath with a black ribbon, accompanied by a post titled “Rest in peace, Samsung Electronics DX Division,” was uploaded to the company’s internal online community in protest of the differential bonus structure.
Samsung’s full, detailed second-quarter results, including division-specific breakdowns, are expected to be released later this month, which analysts say will provide further clarity on the precise scale of the memory division’s profitability relative to the company’s other struggling business units, as well as additional insight into how sustainable the current historic run of profitability is likely to be as the broader memory semiconductor super cycle continues to unfold through the remainder of 2026.
