Samsung is cashing in on the memory crisis, as it estimates profits of over 8 times this period last year
As the memory crisis continues to rage on, Samsung Electronics, Samsung's manufacturing arm, seems set to make a whole bucketload of pennies in return. It just reported its earnings guidance for the first quarter of 2026, effectively an estimate, and the figures are rather monumental.
First up is consolidated sales, which Samsung suggests will sit at 133 trillion Korean won ($88.6 billion). That is just under 40 trillion above the fourth quarter of 2025, and 54 trillion above the first quarter of 2025. That is a huge increase.
Samsung Electronics is one of the biggest suppliers of memory, alongside the likes of SK Hynix and Micron. As such, it's in a bit of a privileged position of being able to sell out of pretty much whatever memory it can make. Just last month, it was rumoured that Samsung was looking at a price increase of over 100%.
Notably, operating profit estimates sit at 57.2 trillion Korean won, which is just under half of its sales. This is a strong margin, significantly better than the 21% of the last quarter and the 8% of the first quarter of 2025.
This higher operating profit doesn't mean that Samsung has given up on pumping money back into the company. Earlier this week, it was reported that Samsung ordered over 10 trillion Korean won worth of EUV machines from ASML, and as SEDaily notes, "Consequently, it is highly likely that Samsung Electronics' production capacity for 1c DRAM and HBM4 will increase significantly in the first half of next year."
2026, first quarter | 2025, fourth quarter | 2025, first quarter | |
Sales in Korean won (USD) | 133 trillion ($88.6 billion) | 93.84 trillion ($62.5 billion) | 79.14 trillion ($52.7 billion) |
Operating profit in Korean won (USD) | 57.2 trillion ($38.1 billion) | 20.07 trillion ($13.4 billion) | 6.69 trillion ($4.5 billion) |
For the unaware, the major cause of the memory crisis is AI, with AI firms hogging up all of that bandwidth to develop models. It seems that, unless the bubble pops earlier than expected, the memory crisis is due to rage for longer. Micron has just recently confirmed that demand is "significantly in excess of our available supply for the foreseeable future."
Still, at least you can generate yellow-tinged images of yourself in a Studio Ghibli style, or whatever.