Samsung Electronics is likely to estimate that its operating profit jumped about 18-fold to another record high from a year earlier in the second quarter, as AI growth continues to strain memory supply and push chip prices higher.

Record Profit

The world’s largest memory chipmaker by sales is likely to flag an operating profit of 86 trillion won ($56.35 billion) for the April to June quarter, according to an LSEG SmartEstimate based on forecasts from 30 analysts, weighted toward those with the best track records.

This would mark a third consecutive quarter of record operating profit for Samsung, reflecting a prolonged memory shortage, as booming demand for AI inference infrastructure continues to outpace supply growth from global memory manufacturers.

Memory Market

Analysts expect the memory market to remain undersupplied at least through next year. The robust growth has been driven not only by high-bandwidth memory (HBM), but also by stronger demand for conventional DRAM and NAND products as AI applications, particularly agentic AI, expand into a broader range of computing workloads.

Samsung is a key supplier of memory chips to major technology companies including Nvidia, Google and Apple. Citi Research on Thursday said average selling prices for DRAM and NAND rose 44% and 53% quarter-on-quarter, respectively, in the second quarter.

The ongoing memory shortage has fueled a massive rally in memory chipmakers’ shares, with Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron soaring 158%, 273% and 242%, respectively, this year, driving all three companies’ market valuations above $1 trillion.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.