[News] Samsung’s 2Q Operating Profit Soars 1,810% to Record KRW 89.4T, Reportedly Surpassing NVIDIA and Apple

Amid surging DRAM and NAND prices, Samsung’s newly released second-quarter earnings guidance once again exceeded market expectations. According to the the company, cited by Hankyung, preliminary second-quarter operating profit reached KRW 89.4 trillion (US$65.6 billion), up 1,810.3% year over year. According to News 1, this would translate into an operating profit margin of 52.3%.

Hankyung notes that the result marks Samsung’s highest quarterly operating profit on record, extending its record-breaking earnings streak to three consecutive quarters. ZDNet further highlights that the figure surpasses the quarterly operating profits of U.S. tech giants NVIDIA and Apple.

Samsung’s record-breaking performance marks the highest quarterly operating profit ever reported by a global IT company, according to ZDNet, surpassing NVIDIA’s previous record of US$53.5 billion (approximately KRW 81.9 trillion) posted in the first quarter of fiscal 2027 (ended April 2026).

The scale of the earnings surge is further underscored by comparisons with Samsung’s past performance. The company posted operating profit of just KRW 4.7 trillion in the same period last year, while its projected 2Q26 operating profit alone surpassed Samsung’s cumulative operating profit over the entire three-year period from 2023 to 2025, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, the company’s preliminary second-quarter revenue came in at roughly KRW 171 trillion, up 129.3% from a year earlier, Hankyung notes.

Memory Prices Fuel Samsung’s Record Quarter

The strong results were primarily driven by Samsung’s booming memory semiconductor business within its Device Solutions (DS) division, with industry observers noting that the company has been a major beneficiary of surging memory prices.

According to ZDNet, average selling prices (ASPs) reportedly climbed more than 50% quarter over quarter for DRAM and over 60% for NAND. A separate ZDNet report also points out that the momentum is expected to continue, as Samsung Electronics is negotiating aggressively with customers to raise its third-quarter DRAM ASP by as much as 20% from the previous quarter.

This strong performance aligns with TrendForce’s latest memory pricing survey, which indicates that the DRAM market will remain extremely tight in the third quarter of 2026, with contract DRAM prices expected to rise another 13–18%.

However, Reuters also notes that despite another strong quarter expected from its memory business, losses in Samsung’s foundry and System LSI operations are likely to deepen, as employee bonus expenses continue to be allocated across the broader semiconductor division.

Read more

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(Photo credit: Samsung)