October 28, 2018, Samsung headquarters in Mountain View, California.
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Korean samsung electronics The company expects its profits to triple in the final three months of last year and reach a record high as memory prices soar due to a surge in demand for artificial intelligence.
The world’s largest memory chip maker estimated fourth-quarter operating profit to reach 20 trillion won and consolidated sales to reach about 93 trillion won, according to its earnings forecast released Thursday.
This profit forecast represents a significant improvement year-on-year and would surpass the long-standing record of 17.6 trillion won set by Samsung in the third quarter of 2018.
The surge comes as chipmakers such as Nvidia say there is limited supply of memory chips used in AI applications.
Memory companies are prioritizing capacity to meet lucrative demand, leading to shortages across the market and impacting chips used in personal computers and mobile devices.
“The memory market has entered a ‘hyper-bull’ phase, with current conditions exceeding the historic 2018 peak. Supplier leverage is at an all-time high due to insatiable demand for AI and server capacity,” Counterpoint Research said in a report on Wednesday.
Market watchers estimate that memory prices rose 40-50% in the final quarter of 2025, with a similar increase expected in the first quarter of 2026, followed by a roughly 20% rise in the second quarter.
While these market trends are pushing up production costs for most consumer electronics makers, they are a boon for memory giants like Samsung and its main competitors in the space, SK Hynix and SK Hynix. micron.
Samsung shares have risen more than 145% in the past 12 months and were up 0.5% in volatile trading on Thursday.
The consumer tech giant continues to trail SK Hynix in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in AI processors like Nvidia. Expanding HBM’s production capacity is expected to be a key focus for the company in the new year.
Samsung plans to release audited earnings and hold a quarterly earnings call later this month.
