Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong inspects the NRD-K cleanroom facility, an advanced integrated semiconductor research and development center at the company’s Giheung campus, on December 22. (Image courtesy of Samsung Electronics)
SEOUL, Jan. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — Samsung Electronics is on the brink of posting its strongest quarterly operating profit ever, buoyed by a historic surge in memory chip prices and a revival in high-bandwidth memory used for artificial intelligence, analysts and industry data show.
The company is expected to announce preliminary fourth-quarter earnings later this week, with consensus estimates pointing to operating profit of about 19 trillion won ($14 billion), nearly triple the previous quarter’s level. Some analysts now predict the figure could surpass 20 trillion won for the first time, a milestone driven largely by its semiconductor division.
At the heart of the rebound is a dramatic rise in prices for both advanced and conventional memory. According to market tracker DRAMeXchange, benchmark prices for legacy DDR4 DRAM jumped nearly sevenfold over the past year, reaching a record $9.30 per unit — the highest level since price tracking began in 2016. NAND flash prices have also climbed sharply, more than doubling over the same period.
The unusual rally reflects tight supply, as memory makers have shifted capacity away from older products to focus on high-performance chips for data centers and AI servers. As the world’s largest memory producer, Samsung has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the shift.
Samsung Electronics’ chip manufacturing plant in Pyeongtaek, 65 kilometers south of Seoul. (Image provided by Samsung Elecs)
Adding to investor optimism is Samsung’s improving position in high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, a critical component in AI accelerators. Industry sources say Samsung has recently received top performance scores in tests of its sixth-generation HBM4 products from major customers, including NVIDIA and Broadcom. HBM4 is expected to be deployed in Nvidia’s next-generation AI platform, slated for release later this year.
Demand has also been boosted by renewed shipments of older Nvidia AI chips to China, where companies have reportedly placed large orders for H200 processors. Those chips incorporate HBM supplied by both Samsung and SK hynix.
Samsung’s share of the global HBM market has steadily increased, rising from 13 percent in the first quarter of last year to more than 20 percent by the third quarter. Analysts expect that figure to exceed 30 percent this year, narrowing the gap with SK hynix, the current market leader.
This photo provided by Samsung Electronics Co. shows the company’s semiconductor production facility in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
The company’s management has framed the rebound as a turning point. In a New Year’s address this month, Samsung’s semiconductor chief said customers had responded to its latest HBM products with remarks that “Samsung is back,” while emphasizing that restoring long-term technology leadership across memory, logic chips, foundry services and advanced packaging remains the company’s core goal.
With memory prices continuing to rise and AI-driven demand accelerating, securities firms now project that Samsung’s semiconductor business could propel annual operating profit beyond 100 trillion won this year — an outcome that would mark one of the most lucrative periods in the company’s history.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
