Samsung just turned memory chips into a money cannon with the first quarter 2026 smashing financial and operational records, and AI demand is still acting like a cheat code for anyone selling bits of silicon.
To show how daft Q1 2026 got, Samsung said semiconductor operating profit jumped 48 times year-on-year on record memory demand, while total operating profit blew out by 756 per cent.
It even teased a side story about hitting 80 per cent yield on a 4nm process as Nvidia-backed Groq, IBM and Baidu pile into its foundry, because nothing says confidence like a victory lap in the footnotes.
Samsung’s quarterly sales were at 133.9 trillion won (about €77.4bn) and flagged the DS semiconductor unit at 81.7 trillion won (about €47.2bn) in sales.
1Q 2026 Results & Financial Data” had sales up to 133.9tn won (about €77.4bn), a 69 per cent year-on-year jump, with operating profit at 57.23tn won (about €33.1bn).
Results by Business Segment” showed total sales rising to 133.9tn won (about €77.4bn) with a 43 per cent quarter-on-quarter lift.
Samsung pegged quarterly sales at 133.9tn won (about €77.4bn), ahead of a consensus estimate of 117.49tn won (about €67.9bn), compared with 79.14tn won (about €45.7bn) in Q1 2025.
It put total quarterly operating profit at 57.23tn won (about €33.1bn), beating a consensus of 38.23tn won (about €22.1bn) and miles from the 6.69tn won (about €3.87bn) it posted in Q1 2025.
Semiconductor DS segment sales hit 81.7tn won (about €47.2bn), up 86 per cent sequentially and 225 per cent year on year, with memory products doing 74.8tn won (about €43.2bn), up 101 per cent sequentially and 292 per cent annually.
Semiconductor operating profit landed at 53.7tn won (about €31.0bn) versus 1.1tn won (about €0.64bn) in Q1 2025.
Mobile MX sales were 37.5tn won (about €21.7bn), up 33 per cent sequentially and four per cent year on year, while mobile and networking NW operating profit was 2.8tn won (about €1.62bn).
That NW profit was up 0.9tn won (about €0.52bn) sequentially but down 1.5tn won (about €0.87bn) year on year, which was not quite the victory parade the memory team was having.
Samsung says it will ship some of the first HBM4e samples shortly and is talking up an early lead in PCIe Gen6 eSSD products, because the AI crowd is buying anything that holds data.
On mobile, there were reports that the Galaxy division was in an “all-out emergency” over rising component costs, yet Samsung says the Galaxy S26 launch sold well, and cost-cutting kept operating profit in single digits.
The spiciest line from the earnings call was Samsung admitting that conventional DRAM is currently yielding higher profits than HBM, because DRAM prices are negotiated quarterly while HBM is locked annually.
Analysts reckon LPDDR5 contract prices, hovering around $10/GB after a threefold jump since Q1 2025, will still see a double-digit percentage rise in 2027, so the pricing fun is not finished.
