According to the performance guidance data disclosed by Samsung Electronics on October 8th, the operating profit in the third quarter of this year increased sharply by 782.5% year-on-year, reaching 107.4 trillion Korean won (approximately 540 billion yuan); Sales increased by 126.6% year-on-year to 195 trillion Korean won, making it the most profitable quarter in Samsung Electronics' history. At the same time, this is also the first time that a South Korean company's quarterly operating profit has exceeded one trillion Korean won. For technology companies, crossing this threshold for single quarter profits is the first time in the world.

In addition, Samsung Electronics' sales and operating profit in the fourth quarter of last year were 93.8 trillion Korean won and 20.1 trillion Korean won respectively, both setting new historical highs. The two data have since broken records for three consecutive quarters. Looking solely at operating profit, the value for the third quarter of this year is about 1.5 times higher than the full year of last year (43.6 trillion Korean won).

The company estimates that the strong demand for artificial intelligence chips has driven strong memory sales, resulting in a nearly 9-fold increase in quarterly profits compared to the same period last year. The world's largest storage chip manufacturer expects operating profit of KRW 10.74 trillion (USD 80.17 billion) from July to September, slightly higher than the KRW 10.61 trillion given by the London Stock Exchange Group's (LSEG) SmartEstimate.

Nowadays, major data center manufacturers around the world are competing to purchase high bandwidth storage chips for their AI servers. The shipping speed of high-performance DRAM and NAND chips on the market cannot keep up with the pace of customer orders, and the bargaining power of storage chip manufacturers has reached its highest level in nearly a decade.

Market research firm Counterpoint Research has recently raised its expectations for DRAM price increases, directly increasing the expected month on month increase for DRAM in the third quarter from the previously estimated 5% -10% to 10% -20%. The reason given is that downstream customers are locking in orders and stockpiling in advance, and chip suppliers' bargaining power continues to strengthen.

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