# Samsung’s profit gloat — retained record

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source: [news](https://highsignal.app/data/news) (news:blocksandfiles)  published 2026-07-07 14:21 ingested 2026-07-08 08:32

[original source ↗](https://www.blocksandfiles.com/flash/2026/07/07/samsungs-profit-gloat/5267690)

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Samsung’s profit gloat
Samsung is gloating about its forthcoming profits with an exec saying: “This year’s profit alone will exceed the cumulative profit generated over the 40 years since Samsung entered the semiconductor business.”
The exec in question, Kim Yong-kwan, President of Samsung’s Device Solutions (DS) division was speaking at a division meeting, according to a report and discussed the quarter and likely full year operating profit numbers.
The consensus expectation for Samsung’s operating profit for its second 2026 quarter is 84.6 to 86 trillion won ($55.9 - 56.8 billion) , a humungous 1,715 percent rise on the year-ago quarter’s 4.7 trillion won ($3.7 billion) at the mid-point, an 18x rise. This could make Samsung the most profitable business in the world.
The exec was speaking at a divisional meeting and said full 2026 year operating profit is thought to be about 300 trillion won ($198.3 billion). Such an amount would be greater than the the entire semiconductor profits made since Samsung entered the business approximately 40 years ago.
This level of profit, excessive some would say, is primarily due to Nvidia’s demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to keep its expensive GPUs busy and not waiting for data IO from storage drives. The GPUs are needed by AI foundation model developers and trainers, hyperscalers, neoclouds and enterprises all fervently focused on developing and using AI foundation models and agents.
As HBM fabrication uses up normal DRAM fab capacity, then its output is restricted, yet it is needed for the CPUs inside GPU servers and for general enterprise and smart device memory requirements. So its price has been rising too.
That in turn has increased demand for SSDs and their NAND chips to reduce IO waits for CPUs and GPUs otherwise using slower disk drives. Consequently NAND chip prices have risen as well, providing a three-way tailwind for suppliers such as Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. They each make HBM, DRAM, and NAND, and form an effective oligopoly.
We have already seen the benefits for Micron in its latest earnings announcement. It made more money in its fiscal Q3 2026 quarter, $41.46 billion, than in its entire previous fiscal year’s $37.38 billion. Samsung’s Q2 operating profit is now expected to be so high that it will exceed Micron’s entire revenues for the quarter, never mind its $28.2 billion profit.
At what level does a profit become obscene? A product’s price is set by how costly it is to produce and its value in the market; how much customers are willing to pay. The AI demand boom is so intense, and the multi-year lead time for building new fabs so long, that HBM, DRAM and NAND customers are now willing to pay extraordinary prices. Samsung, and no doubt SK Hynix too, are benefitting from this and charging what the market will bear.
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