According to the JoongAng Daily losses for the quarter will be considerable. An internal report estimated the company could take a hit as high as $3.04 billion for Q1 2023.

The rumours are based on an internal document which is circulating around Samsung and is surprising given that Samsung's memory chip foundry has not reported a loss since 2008. The company's semiconductor arm, which is turning a profit, likely won't offset the losses and Samsung is expected to lose $1.52 billion in its Device Solution (DS) business 

Contract prices for 8GB of DDR4 DRAM were down to $1.83 — 75 percent lower than four years ago. TrendForce predicts DRAM prices will fall about 20 percent in Q1 2023 and another 11 percent in Q2. It's a steep decline considering DRAM dropped 34 percent in the second half of 2022. Likewise, analysts expect NAND prices to continue to tumble, falling 10 percent in the first quarter and 3 percent in the second.

It has gotten so bad that Samsung's DS division borrowed 20 trillion won from Samsung Display to cover semiconductor investments.

The good news is that the company will remain in the black thanks to its large market shares in the smartphone and appliances sectors, which continue to turn healthy profits. Kim said that Samsung will not reduce its capital expenditures this year and should not have to resort to "artificially" cutting back semiconductor production.