Samsung Electronics is set to release its preliminary Q4 2025 earnings on January 8, drawing widespread market attention, with the spotlight on whether its quarterly operating profit will break the KRW 20 trillion mark (approx. RMB 96.6 billion) for the first time. As major tech giants ramp up investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, market demand for both advanced and universal memory semiconductors is on the rise simultaneously.
According to industry insiders, Samsung Electronics is expected to post its highest-ever quarterly profit in Q4 2025. Data from financial information provider FnGuide shows that the market consensus forecasts the company’s Q4 2025 revenue at KRW 89.217 trillion and operating profit at KRW 16.455 trillion, representing year-on-year growth of 17.7% and 153.4% respectively.
However, securities firms have recently revised their forecasts upward, predicting that Samsung Electronics will deliver record-breaking quarterly results. IBK Securities released its latest report, projecting the company’s Q4 2025 operating profit to reach KRW 21.746 trillion. Daol Investment & Securities also forecasts that Samsung Electronics’ operating profit will exceed the KRW 20 trillion threshold, hitting KRW 20.4 trillion. Hyundai Motor Securities and NH Investment & Securities expect the operating profit to stand at around KRW 19 trillion. All these projections surpass Samsung Electronics’ previous quarterly operating profit record of KRW 17.570 trillion set in Q3 2018.
The primary driver behind Samsung Electronics’ earnings growth is the rising price of universal DRAM. Data from market research firm DRAMeXchange indicates that the average contract price of mainstream PC DRAM products (DDR4 8Gb 1Gx8) stood at $9.3 at the end of 2025. Compared with the expected price of $1.35 at the end of 2024, the price has surged by nearly 700% within a year. As the world’s largest memory chipmaker in terms of production capacity among the top three global storage vendors, Samsung Electronics is poised to benefit the most from the price hike of universal memory chips.
For universal memory, despite sustained demand growth driven by increased equipment investment from AI giants, supply is significantly constrained as production capacity for cutting-edge processes is concentrated in the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) segment. This means that the supply-demand imbalance will inevitably persist.
Kim Rok-ho, a researcher at Hana Securities, commented: "Samsung Electronics’ DRAM business is expected to achieve an operating profit margin of over 50% in Q4 2025, while its NAND business will also hit 20%."
The next-generation AI semiconductor business, including HBM, is also progressing smoothly, laying a solid foundation for earnings growth in 2026. Samsung Electronics’ 6th-generation HBM, HBM4, has recently received high praise from companies such as Nvidia and Broadcom, with stable supply expected in 2026. In December last year, Samsung Electronics took the lead in supplying samples of SOCAM2—a next-generation DRAM module based on LPDDR DRAM that Nvidia is independently promoting as a standard. As a result, it is predicted that Samsung Electronics’ global HBM market share will surge from 10% in 2025 to approximately 30% in 2026.
Samsung’s System LSI and foundry divisions, once dubbed a "pain point" due to massive losses, are also expected to see positive developments. Samsung Electronics previously signed a KRW 23 trillion foundry contract with Tesla and is close to securing a 2nm chip foundry order from AMD. In January 2026, during his business trip to the U.S., Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong met with CEOs of several major tech companies, including Tesla, AMD, Meta, Intel, Qualcomm and Verizon. In the chip design business, Samsung Electronics has also achieved a series of milestones recently, such as integrating the Exynos 2600 processor into its Galaxy S series smartphones and supplying Exynos Auto chips to BMW.
Industry analysts predict that if the system semiconductor market stabilizes following the evident recovery of the memory semiconductor market, Samsung Electronics’ 2027 performance will surpass its previous peak period.
Kim Dong-won, head of the Research Department at KB Securities, projected: "Driven by rising DRAM prices and increasing HBM shipments, Samsung Electronics’ 2026 operating profit will approach KRW 100 trillion (approx. RMB 483 billion), representing a 129% year-on-year increase."
(Reprinted from https://news.eccn.com/）