Samsung Electronics forecast third-quarter operating profit of 107.4 trillion won ($80.1 billion) on Thursday, up 782.5% from a year earlier. It marks the first quarterly figure above 100 trillion won for any South Korean company and reflects surging memory chip prices driven by AI-related demand.

Revenue likely climbed 127% to 195 trillion won over the July-September period. Both figures set new highs. Samsung has now broken its own quarterly records for sales and operating profit four quarters in a row. The company expects to publish final numbers at the end of October.

What is driving the surge?

Demand for advanced memory chips used in AI data centers has tightened global supply and pushed prices higher across DRAM and NAND categories. Samsung, the world's largest memory chipmaker, captures most of the upside. The company produces memory components for data center systems running AI workloads.

Analysts at Shinhan Securities wrote last week that Samsung stands to gain further share as it ramps production of HBM4, a new generation of high-bandwidth memory. "Samsung Electronics now appears all set for a rapid increase in market share," the note said.

How does HBM4 change the math?

High-bandwidth memory feeds data-intensive AI accelerators with wider interfaces than standard DRAM. Samsung, SK hynix and Micron together control the global HBM market. HBM4 increases per-stack capacity over the previous generation. Shinhan's analysts expect the move to reset contract pricing across the segment and project earnings growth from Samsung into 2027.

What about cost pressure inside Samsung?

The same memory price spike is squeezing Samsung's mobile business, which now pays more for the DRAM and NAND inside its own Galaxy smartphones. Analysts say rising component costs become harder to absorb as Samsung holds handset prices steady to protect shipment volumes and market share.

Samsung's memory and mobile units sit inside separate cost centers, but rising chip prices feed directly into bill-of-materials costs for premium phones. Component analysts expect gross margins in Samsung's mobile division to compress further in the December quarter if DRAM contract prices keep climbing.

How is Samsung rewarding shareholders?

In August, Samsung announced a buyback of up to $80 billion of its own stock. The program aims to convert "the fruits of the company's growth translate into tangible benefits" for shareholders, the company said in its statement. The authorization ranks among the largest corporate repurchase announcements of the year.

What is happening on the labor side?

Samsung averted a domestic strike earlier in 2026 by agreeing to allocate bonuses equivalent to 10.5% of operating profit to semiconductor staff. Roughly 78,000 employees out of 125,000 domestic workers will qualify. Market estimates put the average payout near $370,000 this year, based on projected profits.

Across the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, workers at a Micron facility backed a strike vote after bonus reform talks with the U.S. company collapsed. Hundreds of workers participated in the vote. The Taiwan action shows how chip-cycle windfalls are reshaping compensation expectations across the global memory industry, with labor pressing for a larger share of record profits at every major manufacturer.