Samsung Electronics said on the 7th that it posted a provisional operating profit of 57.2 trillion won for the first quarter of 2026. Revenue came to 133 trillion won.
The results represent increases of 68.06% in revenue and 755.01% in operating profit from a year earlier. It is the first time in Korea's corporate history that a single quarter's operating profit has reached the 57 trillion won range for one of the corporations. Compared with the 6.6853 trillion won operating profit in the first quarter of last year, the profit size expanded about 8.5 times in one year.
In particular, the results were an "earnings surprise" that far exceeded market forecasts (consensus). Operating profit beat the securities market's estimate of 38.1166 trillion won by 50.1%, while revenue also topped the forecast (117.1336 trillion won) by 13.5%. Even compared with operating profit in the previous quarter, the fourth quarter of last year, it surged 185.0%, setting a new quarterly record.
The main driver of the rebound was improved profitability in the semiconductor (DS) institutional sector, led by high bandwidth memory (HBM). As shipments of high value-added products such as HBM3E and HBM4 increased, price gains in commodity DRAM and NAND flash drove the results. In addition, as conditions recovered, inventory asset valuation losses that occurred during past deficit periods were reversed into gains, which is also analyzed to have widened the results.
The device experience (DX) institutional sector maintained its revenue scale on strong sales of the Galaxy S26 series, but higher component unit costs weighed on profitability as a variable.
In the industry, there is an assessment that Samsung Electronics, through these provisional results, proved in numbers the full recovery of the memory semiconductor cycle and its influence in the AI Semiconductor market.
A Samsung Electronics official said, "We achieved the company's best-ever results thanks to rising sales and profit in the semiconductor business institutional sector (DS institutional sector), centered on the memory business, and strengthened market competitiveness in the device experience institutional sector (DX institutional sector), which handles smartphones and home appliances."
Samsung Electronics on the day disclosed the provisional results but did not release performance by business institutional sector. The provisional results are estimates under Korea International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS) and are provided for investor convenience even though the settlement of account is not yet completed. Samsung Electronics' final results will be released at the end of this month.