Samsung Electronics believes 2026 could become the biggest year in its semiconductor history. The company now expects to earn more profit this year than it has generated over the past four decades since entering the chip business. The outlook was shared by Kim Yong-kwan, President and Head of Business Strategy at Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions division. According to local reports, he made the comments during a town hall meeting on July 3.
The optimistic forecast comes as Samsung prepares to announce its preliminary financial results for the second quarter of 2026. Investors are also watching the company’s memory business, which continues to benefit from rising demand for AI chips.
Market estimates suggest Samsung will report an operating profit of 84.5994 trillion won, or $55.1 billion, for the second quarter of 2026. If the company reaches that figure, it would move ahead of Nvidia, which reported a first-quarter operating profit of $53.54 billion. That result would make Samsung the world’s most profitable company by operating profit.
Kim Yong-kwan also said the Device Solutions division expects to meet current market expectations for the full year. Analysts now forecast Samsung’s annual operating profit at around 300 trillion won, or nearly $200 billion, in 2026. According to Kim Yong-kwan, that would be higher than the combined profit Samsung has earned throughout almost 40 years in the semiconductor business.
BofA: Memory
> Concerns that the South Korean government's planned ₩800tn memory fab cluster signals a peak in the memory cycle are premature. Meaningful production volumes from this cluster are not expected until 2033, and enterprise chip demand (HBM, eSSD, etc.) remains… pic.twitter.com/UTy7aIplxp
— P Equity Research 📰 (@pequityresearch) July 5, 2026
Higher memory prices continue to boost Samsung
Samsung’s strong outlook is closely linked to rising memory prices. The company is currently negotiating with commodity DRAM customers and aims to raise prices by up to 20 percent in the third quarter compared to the previous quarter.
This follows aggressive price increases earlier this year. Samsung lifted commodity DRAM prices by 90 percent during the first quarter of 2026 compared with reference prices from the fourth quarter of 2025. It then introduced another increase of between 50 and 60 percent in the second quarter.
LPDDR5X 12GB contract prices have also climbed sharply. Prices have tripled since the first quarter of 2025 and stayed close to $120 through the end of the first quarter and into the second quarter of 2026. Since the beginning of this year, prices have increased by $68.8 and recently reached $145 per unit.
Samsung bets on long-term chip demand
Samsung and SK Hynix are investing $800 billion to expand memory chip production capacity. However, the additional capacity is not expected to arrive before 2033. As a result, memory prices could remain high if demand for DRAM and NAND continues to grow with AI adoption.
At the same time, Samsung is reportedly changing the design of its upcoming Exynos 2700 processor. Instead of using on-package memory, the company plans to keep the RAM and system-on-chip separate. The new approach is expected to improve thermal performance.
