Samsung’s record Q1 signals further upside on AI memory boom

Samsung Electronics posted record-breaking quarterly earnings that far exceeded market expectations, driven by surging demand for AI-related memory chips.

The company said Tuesday its preliminary operating profit for the January-March period reached 57.2 trillion won ($38 billion) on revenue of 133 trillion won.

Operating profit jumped 755 percent from 6.69 trillion won a year earlier, while revenue rose 68.1 percent from 79.14 trillion won.

The surge in earnings has propelled Samsung into the global top five in quarterly operating profit, with some analysts saying the company could surpass Nvidia next year to claim the top spot worldwide on an annual basis.

The first quarter results also surpassed the company's previous record set in the fourth quarter of last year, when Samsung logged 93.8 trillion won in revenue and 20.1 trillion won in operating profit.

Quarterly revenue topped the 100 trillion won mark for the first time, while operating profit for the period alone exceeded Samsung's full-year earnings of 43.6 trillion won in 2025.

The figures came in well above market expectations, which had been raised to around 120 trillion won in revenue and 50 trillion won in operating profit, marking one of the company's largest earnings surprises on record.

While Samsung did not disclose divisional breakdowns, analysts say the performance was driven by its semiconductor business, particularly memory, as tight supply across end markets pushed prices up by double-digit rates.

Brokerages estimate operating profit from the chip division could range between 37 trillion won and 48 trillion won.

The uptrend is expected to continue through the rest of the year, with further price increases likely to drive earnings higher in the coming months, industry officials said.

According to market tracker TrendForce, DRAM prices rose 90-95 percent in the first quarter from the previous quarter and are projected to climb another 60 percent in the second quarter. On an annual basis, some forecasts point to DRAM prices surging as much as 250 percent this year compared with 2025.

“Samsung, as the industry leader, pursued an aggressive and proactive pricing strategy in the commodity memory market throughout the quarter,” said Kim Sun-woo, an analyst at Meritz Securities.

“The current memory cycle is approaching the midpoint of a supercycle, and the company’s outsized earnings are likely to drive a rerating of its stock.”

Brokerages have turned increasingly bullish on Samsung’s outlook. KB Securities on Tuesday raised its forecast for the company’s annual operating profit to 327 trillion won this year and 488 trillion won in 2027, while setting a target price of 360,000 won.

“The gap in projected operating profit between Nvidia (357 trillion won) and Samsung (327 trillion won) this year is only about 30 trillion won,” said Kim Dong-won, head of research at KB Securities.

Samsung’s current market capitalization of about $830 billion is just 19 percent of Nvidia’s $4.3 trillion and about 57 percent of TSMC’s $1.5 trillion, suggesting significant valuation upside, Kim said.

Samsung’s share edged up 0.73 percent to 194,500 won as of midday Tuesday, after hitting an intraday high of 209,500 won. Samsung has been expanding shipments of high-end memory, including fifth-generation high-bandwidth memory, or HBM3E, to major technology companies such as Nvidia, Google and AMD.

The company has also begun mass production of next-generation HBM4 this year, with the chips expected to be used in Nvidia's upcoming AI accelerator platform, Vera Rubin.

TL;DR: Samsung's Q1 operating profit is larger than last year's entire OP and it's only expected to grow for at least the next three years. The company's expected OP this year is 250 billion US dollars compared to its current 800 billion dollar market cap. Same story with compatriot SK Hynix.

Memory stockholders are going UP UP UP