Brands
Samsung posts record quarterly profit on AI memory chip boom
Tech giant reports 89.4 trillion won operating profit as AI chip demand powers growth
MUMBAI: Silicon is striking gold. As the AI race gathers speed, the biggest winners are increasingly the companies supplying the memory that keeps it all running. Samsung Electronics has reported record quarterly earnings, fuelled by soaring demand for artificial intelligence memory chips, with the South Korean technology giant surpassing Nvidia in quarterly operating profit and underscoring the growing importance of memory makers in the global AI supply chain.
For the April-June quarter, Samsung posted a preliminary operating profit of 89.4 trillion won ($64.5 billion), soaring from 4.7 trillion won in the corresponding period last year and comfortably exceeding market expectations. Revenue climbed to a record 171 trillion won ($123.4 billion), driven by continued strength in its semiconductor business.
The performance also saw Samsung overtake Nvidia’s previously reported quarterly operating profit, making it the most profitable technology company for the quarter. The results surpassed Samsung’s own previous earnings record, highlighting the financial windfall created by accelerating global investment in AI infrastructure.
At the heart of the surge was robust demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), server DRAM and NAND flash memory components that have become indispensable for AI servers and the large-scale data centres powering generative AI applications.
Samsung noted that the reported figures include special employee bonuses agreed with its labour union. Analysts said these payments accounted for a significant portion of quarterly expenses, suggesting the company’s underlying operating performance may have been even stronger.
The latest earnings illustrate how the AI boom is reshaping the semiconductor industry. Samsung has now generated more operating profit in a single quarter than it earned across the combined period of 2023, 2024 and 2025, reflecting the extraordinary demand for advanced memory technologies as companies worldwide continue to expand AI computing capacity.
With hyperscalers and technology firms investing heavily in next-generation AI infrastructure, Samsung’s latest performance signals that memory chip manufacturers are emerging as some of the biggest beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence revolution.
