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Samsung Electronics forecast preliminary third-quarter operating profit of 107.4 trillion won ($80.1 billion), a record for the South Korean technology group, as strong artificial-intelligence-related demand lifted memory-chip sales. The estimate, announced on October 8, covers the three months through September 30 and marks the company’s fourth consecutive quarter of record operating profit.
The figure was nearly nine times the 12.17 trillion won recorded a year earlier and exceeded the 89.49 trillion won earned in the second quarter. It nevertheless came in below Bloomberg’s 108.67 trillion-won estimate, while slightly topping the 106.1 trillion-won LSEG estimate cited by Investing.com. The differing benchmarks underscore how a record result can still disappoint against some market forecasts.
Sales more than doubled year over year
Samsung put third-quarter consolidated sales at approximately 195 trillion won, compared with 86.06 trillion won in the same period of 2025 and 171.5 trillion won in the preceding quarter. The company’s guidance gives ranges of 194 trillion to 196 trillion won for sales and 107.3 trillion to 107.5 trillion won for operating profit; Samsung said the headline figures represent the midpoints of those ranges.
The company’s October 8 announcement is preliminary guidance, not a full earnings report. It does not include net income, business-unit breakdowns or detailed explanations of quarterly performance. Those figures will be important for assessing how much of the increase came from semiconductors versus Samsung’s other businesses.
AI demand supports the memory-chip business
The preliminary results arrive amid strong demand for memory used in AI computing. Samsung is one of the major suppliers of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, used in advanced computing systems, alongside South Korean rival SK Hynix and U.S.-based Micron. Expanding demand for AI computing has increased orders for advanced memory and tightened supply, according to the Investing.com report.
The profit guidance alone does not show Samsung’s revenue or margins by product, nor does it spell out the contribution of HBM. Investors will have to wait for the full release to learn how the company’s memory business performed and how much of the overall profit surge came from other chip categories.
Expectations and currency remain factors
The difference between the Bloomberg and LSEG comparisons illustrates the role of forecasts in interpreting the announcement: Samsung beat one cited consensus measure and missed another. Shares traded in a flat-to-lower range in morning trading on Thursday, October 8, according to Investing.com. That report also noted declines in the broader KOSPI market, limiting what can be inferred from the company’s early share performance alone.
Investing.com reported that higher component costs could put pressure on Samsung’s smartphone and consumer-electronics divisions. It also identified the stronger South Korean won as a possible headwind, since currency movements can reduce the won value of overseas sales. Samsung’s preliminary guidance did not quantify either effect, so their impact on the quarter’s results remains unclear.
Full results scheduled for October 29
Samsung is scheduled to publish detailed third-quarter results on October 29. The full report should provide the profit and sales breakdown by business and further information for investors to assess the sources of growth. Until then, the company’s October 8 figures remain estimates, rather than finalized quarterly results.
The scale of the year-over-year increase highlights the earnings leverage available to a major memory-chip producer during an AI-driven demand surge. But the gap between estimates, and the lack of segment-level details in the preliminary announcement, leave open how broadly the performance was shared across Samsung’s businesses.
