The news
On July 30, 2026, Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) reported record second-quarter results: revenue of KRW 171.5 trillion and operating profit of KRW 89.5 trillion. Memory chips for AI servers drove the Samsung earnings record, and the company expects that market to stay undersupplied.
Revenue rose 28% from the first quarter and 130% from a year earlier, while operating profit rose 56% quarter on quarter, according to Samsung's earnings presentation. The operating margin was 52.2% and net profit was KRW 71.6 trillion. Earnings per share rose 52% to KRW 10,849. A year earlier, Samsung reported KRW 74.57 trillion in revenue and KRW 4.68 trillion in operating profit.
The Device Solutions chip division generated KRW 127.5 trillion in revenue and KRW 89.2 trillion of the group's KRW 89.5 trillion operating profit. Memory revenue alone was KRW 120.8 trillion, up 471% year on year, the presentation showed. Samsung said it scaled up sales of HBM4, its sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory for AI processors, and shipped the industry's first HBM4E samples to major customers.
For the second half, Samsung said accelerating demand for server DRAM, enterprise solid-state drives (eSSDs) and HBM is projected to keep the market undersupplied despite some softening in mobile and PC demand, and that supply constraints are expected to continue despite efforts to raise output. As reported by CNBC, Samsung also said it expects constraints to tighten further in 2027, that more customers are seeking multi-year supply agreements, and that it has finalized agreements with the top five global data center customers.
The rest of Samsung felt the other side of the boom. Device eXperience division revenue fell 9% from the first quarter, and the mobile and networks business posted a KRW 0.7 trillion operating loss, which Samsung attributed to elevated component cost pressures across the industry.
The results matched the preliminary figures Samsung issued on July 7. CNBC reported that operating profit beat the LSEG SmartEstimate of KRW 88.13 trillion while revenue came in below the KRW 172.65 trillion estimate, and that Samsung shares closed 0.72% lower on July 30.
The numbers
- Q2 2026 revenue
- KRW 171.5 trillion
- Q2 2026 operating profit
- KRW 89.5 trillion
- Operating margin
- 52.2%
- Net profit
- KRW 71.6 trillion
- Memory business revenue
- KRW 120.8 trillion (up 471% YoY)
- Mobile and networks operating result
- KRW 0.7 trillion loss
- Earnings per share
- KRW 10,849
Why CEOs should care
For IT and infrastructure buyers, the practical message is that server memory will not get cheaper soon. When a leading memory maker says server DRAM, eSSD and HBM demand will outrun supply through the second half and that constraints will tighten in 2027, budgets for servers, storage and AI hardware should assume higher prices. TrendForce said on July 9 that several large US cloud providers had signed multi-year agreements limiting price rises, and that increases would fall mainly on buyers without such agreements and on extra volume bought outside them. Ask your server vendors about memory surcharges, price-hold periods and whether they have secured 2027 supply.
CFOs should treat memory as a rising share of hardware spending and plan around longer lead times. Options include pulling forward critical server purchases, negotiating fixed pricing on multi-year refresh programs, and stress-testing AI project budgets against further DRAM and SSD increases. The same pressure hit Samsung's own mobile and networks business, which lost money on component costs, a signal that laptops and phones face cost pressure too.
Boards should ask whether AI roadmaps assume hardware availability and prices that suppliers now say will not exist. If a project depends on new GPU or accelerator capacity in 2027, confirm with cloud or hardware providers that capacity and memory are contracted, not just forecast.
The bigger picture
The quarter showed how far AI spending has reshaped Samsung. A year earlier, the chip division earned KRW 0.4 trillion in operating profit; in the second quarter of 2026 it earned KRW 89.2 trillion, according to the presentation. Domestic rival SK Hynix also reported a record second-quarter profit on July 29, CNBC noted. Josh Gilbert, lead analyst for Asia-Pacific at eToro, told CNBC the memory business's strength was remarkable, "but so is Samsung's dependence on it."
Investors had largely priced in the record. When Samsung issued its preliminary figures on July 7, its shares closed 6.9% lower, Yahoo Finance reported, citing analysts' comments to Reuters that the results were widely expected and largely priced in after a strong rally.
What happened next
On September 24, 2026, TrendForce said in its fourth-quarter memory price forecast that cloud providers' AI demand would keep DRAM and NAND flash contract prices rising, with enterprise SSD contract prices up 23% to 28% from the third quarter and overall NAND flash up 15% to 20%. It also said passing costs on to consumers was cutting notebook and phone shipments.
The next checkpoint is Samsung's third-quarter preliminary guidance; it published the second-quarter version on July 7, a week after that quarter ended. Watch whether Samsung repeats its warning on 2027 supply and whether multi-year supply agreements spread beyond the largest data center customers.
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