Seoul, April 7 Samsung Electronics on Tuesday estimated its first-quarter operating profit to have surpassed 50 trillion won ($33.1 billion) for the first time, driven by strong demand for premium memory chips from the artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
The South Korean tech giant projected an operating profit of 57.2 trillion won for the January-March period, surging from 6.61 trillion won a year earlier, according to earnings guidance released by Samsung Electronics.
The operating profit was 36.7 percent higher than the average estimate, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.
Samsung Electronics' operating profit for all of 2025 was 43.6 trillion won.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Samsung Electronics posted an operating profit of 20 trillion won, which at the time marked a new quarterly high.
Revenue rose 68.1 percent on-year to 133 trillion won in the first quarter, exceeding 100 trillion won for the first time ever to set a new quarterly high. Net earnings data was not available.
Samsung Electronics did not provide a detailed breakdown of earnings by business division, although its device solutions (DS) unit, which includes the semiconductor segment, is believed to have accounted for a dominant share.
Samsung Electronics has been pushing to expand the supply of sixth-generation high bandwidth memory, or HBM4, this year, targeting strong demand for AI infrastructure.
Analysts believe the DS arm may have posted an operating profit of around 50 trillion won in the first quarter, more than tripling from 16.4 trillion won in the previous quarter.
Samsung Electronics' device experience (DX) arm, which covers mobile and TV businesses, on the other hand, is expected to have faced burdens from rising production costs, according to the analysts.
In detail, the tech giant's mobile business is estimated to have posted an operating profit of around 2 trillion won in the first quarter, down from 4.3 trillion won over the same period last year.
For the remainder of 2026, analysts said Samsung Electronics is expected to maintain growth momentum, with Korea Investment & Securities Co. suggesting an annual operating profit of 302 trillion won, up 50 percent from the previous outlook of 202 trillion won.
"With (Samsung Electronics) expecting long-term contracts with major hyperscale clients, such robust earnings are expected to continue on a mid- to long-term basis," Chae Min-sook, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities, said in a report.
KB Securities Co. projected an annual operating profit of 327 trillion won, up 49 percent from its previous forecast, noting Samsung Electronics' earnings are expected to accelerate amid the AI boom.
"With global data center operators absorbing 60 percent of Samsung's shipments of DRAM and NAND products, the expansion of investment in AI infrastructure is driving memory demand," Kim Dong-won, an analyst at KB Securities, said in a report.
Samsung Electronics will release its final earnings report later this month.
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