Even Nvidia Couldn't Reach It... "At This Rate, Samsung Electronics" Surprising Forecast

[Anchor]

Samsung Electronics has set another monumental record. Its preliminary operating profit for the second quarter reached 89.4 trillion won, meaning it earned more in just three months than it did in the past three years combined. This figure excludes approximately 20 trillion won in provisions for performance bonuses, effectively ushering in an era of 100 trillion won in operating profit. It is a record that even global big tech companies like Nvidia and Apple have not surpassed.

For our first story, here is reporter Jeong Seong-jin.

[Reporter]

Samsung Electronics announced that its revenue for the second quarter of this year was 171 trillion won, with a preliminary operating profit of 89.4 trillion won.

The operating profit increased by more than 1,800% compared to a year ago, marking the highest performance for the third consecutive quarter.

In just one quarter, the company earned more than 6 trillion won more than the total operating profit of the past three years combined.

This level is higher than the record quarterly operating profits of global big tech firms such as Nvidia and Apple, making it the number one record among private companies worldwide, excluding the Saudi Arabian state-owned company Aramco.

This performance excludes approximately 17 trillion won estimated for first and second-quarter performance bonus provisions, leading to assessments that the company effectively achieved an operating profit exceeding 100 trillion won.

The record-breaking performance was driven, as expected, by semiconductors.

As AI big tech companies continue their astronomical investments, the semiconductor shortage persists, and prices continue to soar.

Samsung Electronics succeeded in being the first to mass-produce the 6th generation High Bandwidth Memory, HBM4, expanding its share in the high-value market, and is also benefiting from price increases due to supply shortages in general-purpose memory such as DRAM.

[Interview: Ahn Ki-hyun, Executive Director at the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association: Demand for HBM has continued to be created, while demand for general DRAM has been maintained but supply has decreased. Therefore, a supply shortage has occurred in both areas.]

While there are forecasts that the DRAM price increase rate will slow to around 15% in the third quarter, analysts suggest that the upward trend in performance will not break, as the market remains in a state of supply shortage with prices already nearly 10 times higher than last year.

[Interview: Kim Yang-paeng, Senior Researcher at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade: It is becoming a more powerful foundation for industry than just being a core component. It is moving beyond an essential good to becoming infrastructure...]

The market is even offering rosy forecasts that if the current trend continues, annual operating profit could reach 370 trillion won this year and 500 trillion won next year.

(Video Editing: Kim Ho-jin, Graphics: Park Tae-young)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.