Seoul [South Korea], October 14 : South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. saw its third-quarter operating profit rise by nearly 32 per cent on strong demand for chips, according to a report by Pulse, the English service of Maeil Business Newspaper Korea.
Citing Samsung Electronics' regulatory filing, the report on Tuesday stated that its preliminary operating profit for the third quarter stood at 12.1 trillion won (approximately USD 8.48 billion), up 31.81 per cent from the same period a year ago.
The figure was 158.55 per cent higher than 4.68 trillion won (USD 3.28 billion) in the second quarter.
The report stated that it marks Samsung's first time in five quarters to record an operating profit exceeding 10 trillion won (approximately USD 7.2 billion) since the second quarter of 2024. It is also the largest operating profit since the second quarter of 2022, when it was 14.1 trillion won (USD 10.15 billion).
"Revenue came in at 86 trillion won (USD 61.92 billion) in the July-September period, up 8.72 per cent year-on-year and 15.33 per cent quarter-on-quarter, setting a new record high. The previous quarterly record was 79.1 trillion won (approximately USD 56.95 billion), which was posted in the third quarter of 2024. The third-quarter operating profit beat the market consensus by 17.4 per cent," the report noted.
The market had projected Samsung's third-quarter operating profit at 10.3 trillion won (USD 7.42 billion), a 12.21 per cent increase year-on-year, the report said, citing data compiled by Yonhap Infomax Co. from 17 brokerage firms over the past month.
Earlier forecasts had hovered around 9.8 trillion won (approximately USD 7.06 billion), but improving memory prices and a smaller loss in non-memory chips led analysts to raise their expectations.
Looking ahead, the report stated that Samsung's earnings momentum is expected to continue into the fourth quarter, driven by semiconductor sales.
Demand for server DRAM and HBM chips remains strong due to the global spread of AI applications, and prices show no sign of softening.
Samsung Electronics has recently agreed to supply high-performance, low-power memory on a large scale to OpenAI Inc.'s 700-trillion-won (approximately USD 490 billion) Stargate project, an ultra-large AI infrastructure initiative.