Samsung Electronics estimated its third-quarter operating profit at 107.4 trillion won, or about $80.28 billion, making it the first South Korean company to earn more than 100 trillion won in a single quarter, The Korea Times reported. The preliminary figures, released Thursday morning in Seoul, beat profit forecasts but fell short on revenue.

What Happened

Samsung put quarterly revenue at about 195 trillion won. Operating profit rose 782.5% from a year earlier, and revenue climbed 126.6%. The profit figure edged past the consensus estimate of 106.64 trillion won cited by The Korea Times, while revenue missed the 200.64 trillion won analysts had expected.

The results confirm what forecasters anticipated earlier this week. As The Primary Wire reported Monday, a separate consensus compiled by FnGuide and cited by The Korea Herald had put profit at 108.1 trillion won and revenue at 201.7 trillion won, so the actual profit landed between the two published estimates while revenue trailed both.

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Samsung does not break out results by business in its preliminary guidance. Analysts estimate, according to The Korea Times, that the memory business alone generated roughly 110 trillion won in operating profit, more than the company’s total, meaning other units together lost money.

Why It Matters

The quarter shows how heavily Samsung’s earnings now depend on demand for AI servers. The main drivers were sales of HBM4, the latest generation of high-bandwidth memory, for Nvidia’s Vera Rubin AI platform, along with double-digit price increases for conventional DRAM.

Samsung also said on its second-quarter earnings call that long-term supply agreements with customers were increasing, and analysts believe that trend continued in the third quarter. Such contracts can make memory earnings less exposed to the sharp price swings that have historically defined the business.

Kim Sun-woo, an analyst at Meritz Securities, said Samsung’s pricing strategy again beat the industry average despite the headwind from a sharp rise in the won, which reduces the value of overseas sales. He also said supply constraints are likely to become more visible in 2027, as chipmakers shift production toward server DRAM and HBM and mobile customers are forced to absorb higher prices.

The Weak Spot

The Device Experience division, which makes smartphones and other devices, is estimated to have lost between 1.1 trillion and 2.64 trillion won, its second consecutive quarterly loss, according to analyst projections cited by The Korea Times. The newspaper attributed the slump to weak smartphone demand and consumers keeping devices longer.

Rising memory prices work against that division: the chips that are lifting Samsung’s semiconductor profits are also a growing cost for the phones and devices it builds.

What to Watch

Samsung will release full third-quarter results, including figures for each division, on Oct. 29. Investors will look for the memory unit’s actual margin, Samsung’s share of HBM4 supply to Nvidia, the direction of DRAM contract prices in the fourth quarter and whether the device business can return to profit. SK hynix, which is exposed to the same memory cycle, reports later in the month.