The Samsung exhibition stand features the prominent ”A new era of mobile agentic AI” slogan by the South Korean company Samsung Electronics.
Joan Cros | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Samsung Electronics reported an over eight-fold increase in first-quarter operating profits on Thursday, hitting a new record and beating analysts’ estimates, as demand for artificial intelligence servers and a memory chip shortage boosted earnings.
Here are Samsung’s first-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:
- Revenue: 133.9 trillion Korean won ($89.96 billion) vs. 132.69 trillion won expected
- Operating profit: 57.2 trillion won vs. 55.28 trillion won expected
The South Korean technology giant’s quarterly profit climbed more than 750% from a year earlier to a fresh record. The company also posted record revenue, up about 70% year over year.
The profits came in line with Samsung’s own estimates of 57.2 trillion won, and were more than its full-year 2025 profits of 43.6 trillion won.
The earnings extend momentum from the final quarter of last year, when Samsung surpassed its prior record of 17.6 trillion won set in the third quarter of 2018.
Samsung’s record earnings came on the strength of its chip business. South Korea’s largest company by market capitalization is a major producer of memory chips, semiconductor foundry services and smartphones.
The electronics and memory giant has emerged as a major beneficiary of the global AI data center boom, which has constrained the supply of memory chips used in devices such as smartphones, PCs and game consoles.
In an earnings report, Samsung said that its memory business “surpassed its quarterly sales record by addressing high-value-added AI demand despite limited supply availability, with industry-wide memory price increases also a contributing factor.”
The company expects server memory demand to remain strong into the second half of the year as hyperscalers continue to accommodate AI adoption and demand for agentic AI accelerates.
The strong performance comes as Samsung expands its high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, business, a key component in AI data center chips.
Chipmakers such as Nvidia — the world’s most valuable company — have driven demand for HBM, amid limited supplies.
As manufacturers prioritize production for higher-margin AI applications, supply constraints have pushed up prices for memory used in consumer electronics.
