The AI industry drives up storage chip prices! Samsung Electronics' Q1 operating profit increases over 7 times, reaching a new high

Samsung Electronics’ performance significantly exceeded market expectations.

Local time on April 7, Samsung Electronics posted its earnings guidance for the first quarter of 2026 on its official website. The data far surpassed market expectations. The guidance shows that Samsung Electronics expects consolidated sales of approximately 133 trillion won (about RMB 606.48 billion) in the first quarter of 2026, a year-over-year increase of 68.1%. This is up 41.7% from 93.84 trillion won in the fourth quarter of 2025. Previously, the market generally expected Samsung Electronics’ first-quarter sales to be 116.8 trillion won.

In the first quarter, the company’s consolidated operating profit is expected to be approximately 57.2 trillion won (about RMB 1.33M). Compared with 6.69 trillion won in the first quarter of 2025, it surged 755%, setting the highest year-over-year growth rate in recent years. Compared with 20.07 trillion won in the fourth quarter of 2025, it increased 185%, with profitability scaling up at a rapid pace for two consecutive quarters.

This operating profit set a new historical high, and is far above analysts’ average expectation of 39.3 trillion won.

Analysts noted that this upside surprise was driven mainly by a surge in demand and price increases for storage chips spurred by the global AI industry. As one of the world’s largest storage-chip manufacturers, Samsung Electronics holds a leading market share in the DRAM and NAND flash segments. Strong demand for high-performance storage chips in areas such as AI servers and data centers boosted overall performance.

Sanjeev Rana, head of research at Lion Securities’ Korea research unit, said: “It’s all driven by the memory business, and its performance is far beyond expectations.” He estimated that the memory business’s contribution could be close to 90% of total operating profit. He also noted that the supply of HBM and traditional DRAM products is “very tight.”

In a report published on April 2, Citigroup said that the global average DRAM selling price surged 64% quarter over quarter in the first quarter. The firm predicted that Samsung’s annual operating profit in 2026 will reach 310 trillion won, and said that strong AI inference demand will support its price increases.

Also, according to reports from overseas media, data shows that as a barometer of global technology demand, South Korea’s semiconductor exports surged 151.4% in March to a record high of $32.8 billion.

（Source: The Paper）