The Samsung exhibition stand includes South Korean company Samsung Electronics’ flagship “A New Era of Mobile Agentic AI” slogan.
Joan Cros | Nurfoto | getty images
Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported a more than eightfold increase in first-quarter operating profit, setting a new record and beating analysts’ estimates, as artificial intelligence server demand and memory chip shortages boosted earnings.
Here are Samsung’s first-quarter results compared to the LSEG SmartEstimate, which is based on analysts’ forecasts that are consistently more accurate:
- Income: 133.9 trillion Korean won ($89.96 billion) vs. 132.69 trillion won expected
- operating profit: 57.2 trillion won vs 55.28 trillion won expected
The South Korean technology giant’s quarterly profit surged more than 750% from a year earlier to hit a new record. The company also reported record revenue, up nearly 70% year over year.
Profit came in line with Samsung’s estimates 57.2 trillion wonAnd its full-year 2025 profit was more than 43.6 trillion won.
The earnings pick up pace from the final quarter of last year, when Samsung surpassed its previous record of 17.6 trillion won set in the third quarter of 2018.
Samsung’s record earnings were driven by its chip business. South Korea’s largest company by market capitalization is a major producer of memory chips, semiconductor foundry services and smartphones.
Electronics and memory giants emerge as a major beneficiary of the global AI data center boom supply interrupted The number of memory chips used in devices such as smartphones, PCs, and game consoles.
In an earnings report, Samsung said its memory business “surpassed its quarterly sales record by addressing high value-added AI demand despite limited supply availability, with industry-wide memory price increases also a contributing factor.”
The company expects demand for server memory to remain strong in the second half of the year as hyperscalers continue to adjust to AI adoption and demand for agentic AI accelerates.
The strong performance comes as Samsung expands its high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, business, a key component in AI data center chips.
Chipmakers like Nvidia – the world’s most valuable company – have increased demand for HBM amid limited supply.
As manufacturers prioritize production for high-margin AI applications, supply constraints have driven up prices of memory used in consumer electronics.
