By Kwanwoo Jun

Samsung Electronics expects record above-consensus earnings for its latest quarter, boosted by an artificial-intelligence-driven memory-chip supercycle that is fueling demand for its products.

The world's largest maker of memory chips and smartphones has benefited from a surge in chip prices over the past year amid increasing AI adoption, as companies pour billions of dollars into AI infrastructure.

The bulk of Samsung's profits once came from smartphones, but the semiconductor business has now come back as its major cash cow, accounting for more than half of its earnings recently.

The South Korean technology company said in preliminary results Thursday that its operating profit likely reached 20 trillion won, equivalent to $13.81 billion, for the final quarter of 2025.

That, more than triple the year-earlier figure, beat a FactSet-compiled consensus estimate of 17.679 trillion won and topped the company's previous record of 17.57 trillion won set in the third quarter of 2018.

Quarterly revenue is forecast to have risen 23%, to 93 trillion won, Samsung said.

For 2025, revenue likely rose 11%, to 332.77 trillion won, with operating profit projected to have jumped 33%, to 43.53 trillion won, according to the company.

Samsung gave no further earnings details. It is scheduled to release full quarterly results, including an earnings breakdown for each of its business segments, later this month.

The stock has shot up about 18% in early 2026 after more than doubling last year, buoyed by expectations that the company will continue to benefit from higher memory-chip prices.

Many analysts have said that semiconductor prices are likely to remain supported by strong demand for AI accelerators to speed up AI training and inference, as well as a shortage in supply of general-purpose chips used in conventional data servers, smartphones and other electronic devices.

Some predict a yearslong AI-fueled chip-industry boom. Nomura analysts in a recent research note said they expect the "memory supercycle" to last until 2027, while HSBC analyst Ricky Seo forecast a semiconductor upward trend that could extend for four to five years.

Write to Kwanwoo Jun at kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 07, 2026 18:33 ET (23:33 GMT)

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