Samsung forecasts Q3 profit of 12.1 trillion won on memory demand

Samsung Electronics projected an operating profit of 12.1 trillion won for the July to September quarter, its strongest quarterly profit in more than three years, the company said Tuesday, as rising demand for server and artificial intelligence related memory chips pushed up prices and shipments. The company also indicated quarterly revenue of about 86 trillion won, reflecting a recovery in its semiconductor business that analysts said was driven largely by tighter supply and higher prices for conventional DRAM and NAND products.

Analysts and Samsung’s filing attributed the gains to a broad uptick in memory demand from hyperscale cloud operators and other large tech customers expanding AI infrastructure. Prices for some DRAM chips jumped 171.8 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to TrendForce data, a swing that helped offset weaker sales of the most advanced high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips that Samsung has not yet begun fully supplying to some major customers.

"The third-quarter earnings surprise came from the chip business," said Ryu Youngho, a senior analyst at NH Investment Securities, noting that stronger commodity memory revenue and tight...