Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.KS) reported first-quarter operating profit of 11.4 trillion won (US$8.0 billion) early Thursday Seoul time, comfortably beating the FactSet consensus of 10.2 trillion won and a 41% year-on-year jump. Total revenue of 87.6 trillion won was 8.4% higher than year-ago and slightly ahead of the 86.5 trillion estimate. Net profit came in at 8.7 trillion won.
The DRAM division was the standout, generating 6.2 trillion won of operating profit on 22.4 trillion won of revenue. HBM4 high-bandwidth memory sales — the most advanced AI-accelerator memory product — grew 84% year-on-year to 4.6 trillion won, with the Nvidia-qualified 12-Hi stack now in volume production. Samsung said it has secured "more than 50% of total 2026 HBM4 capacity bookings."
Foundry Inflection
The Foundry business recorded a 1.4 trillion won operating loss, a meaningful improvement from the 2.1 trillion loss in Q1 2025 and a 32% narrowing year-on-year. Management cited "increased utilization at the 2nm node and continued ramp at the 3nm node, particularly the Tesla AI5 application processor and the new Qualcomm Snapdragon Edge chip." The Mobile eXperience (MX) division delivered 4.2 trillion won of operating profit, marginally below the 4.5 trillion consensus, reflecting the elevated component-cost inflation amid the Iran-conflict-driven shipping environment.
CFO Park Jung-jin guided the second quarter operating profit to "12-13 trillion won," implying acceleration from Q1. Park reiterated that the full-year capital-expenditure plan of 64 trillion won remains intact, with 50 trillion of it allocated to the semiconductor businesses. The Galaxy S26 launch in March is contributing higher dollar margins than the S25 generation, driven by AI-feature-enabled premium pricing.
Stock Reaction
Samsung Electronics shares rose 4.2% in early Seoul trade to KRW 87,600, underperforming SK Hynix (000660.KS) at +5.8% but outperforming the broader KOSPI Composite at +1.7%. The print followed strong overnight reaction in U.S. ADRs which gained 3.6%. The KKR-led private-equity transaction announced April 14 to take a 12% stake in Samsung Display moves into the regulatory-review phase next week.