Nearly ninefold increase: Memory shortage drives Samsung's preliminary third-quarter results to record levels
Samsung Electronics on Thursday, 8 October 2026 reported a preliminary operating profit of 107.4 trillion won (around $80.2 billion) for the third quarter — according to Reuters the first time a technology company has passed 100 trillion won in a quarter, a nearly ninefold increase from a year earlier. Yet the stock fell, and several signs suggest the AI-driven memory boom is starting to lose speed.
The numbers in the guidance
Samsung's preliminary figures for July–September, released on 8 October, show an operating profit of 107.4 trillion won — equivalent to $80.17 billion according to Reuters and $80.2 billion according to CNBC. That is, per Reuters, a nearly ninefold rise from the same quarter last year, and the first time a technology company's quarterly operating profit has passed 100 trillion won. Revenue is expected to rise 127 percent to 195 trillion won — also a record, and the company's fourth consecutive quarter of record results.
Full results with figures by division are due on 29 October.
The memory shortage driving the result
The engine behind the record is the global shortage of memory chips. As investment in AI infrastructure grows faster than the industry's capacity to expand supply, memory prices have risen sharply. In its July earnings release, Samsung itself pointed to continued AI infrastructure investment and increased use of AI agents expected to accelerate demand for server memory, enterprise storage and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) in the second half, according to Anadolu Agency.
That this is not just a Samsung story is confirmed by competitor TSMC, which reported that September sales rose 54.6 percent and third-quarter revenue grew about 50 percent, according to Stocktwits/Yahoo Finance. (The same source gives an absolute figure we do not use, as its currency conversion appears to be erroneous; the growth rates are the reliable information.)
The mixed signals
Record figures notwithstanding, the market received the guidance with skepticism. The revenue forecast of 195 trillion won came in below the FactSet consensus of 206.8 trillion won, cited by The Wall Street Journal via Stocktwits/Yahoo Finance. The stock fell 0.7 percent on Thursday morning according to CNBC, and has per Reuters fallen more than 25 percent from its June record high — driven by doubts about how long the AI boom will last. Analysts have, according to Tekedia, cut consensus estimates by 7.7 percent since the end of August, citing in part a stronger won.
In addition, analysts Reuters has spoken to point to two weaknesses underneath: the mobile division reportedly posted a larger-than-expected loss of more than $1 billion in the third quarter, and the foundry business is still expected to run at a loss. These are analyst estimates, not figures from Samsung — the preliminary guidance contained no divisional breakdowns.
Why price growth may slow
The most important warning light concerns memory prices. TrendForce expects conventional DRAM contract prices to rise 10–15 percent in the fourth quarter — a significant slowdown from roughly 60 percent growth in the second quarter, according to Tekedia.
Part of the explanation lies in Samsung's own strategy. In July, the company said it aims to secure long-term contracts covering around two-thirds of its memory production. Such contracts involve price-cap mechanisms — they give Samsung predictability and secured volumes, but also dampen the price increases that have driven the record results. In other words: part of the slowdown in price growth is built into the company's own contracting.
The outlook and what remains
Looking ahead, both Samsung and Micron expect the supply-demand imbalance to persist into 2028, according to Reuters — but they also point to Chinese competition and a possible decline in AI spending as risks to the long-term earnings picture. Separately, Samsung announced in September a strategic partnership with France's Mistral AI to adopt the startup's AI models in its semiconductor business, CNBC reports.
The full divisional results on 29 October will settle several open questions: how large the reported mobile loss actually is, how deep the foundry loss runs, and how soft revenue was across the divisions. Until then, the record figure stands unchallenged — but the direction of memory prices through the fourth quarter will say more about how durable the boom really is than any single quarter's result.