Samsung earns 107 trillion won in a quarter, nearly all of it from chips
Samsung Electronics reported third-quarter revenue of 195.25 trillion won, up 126.9%, and of 107.44 trillion won, up 783.1%, on Thursday. The chip division made 106.5 trillion won of that on 147.1 trillion won in sales. The device business, phones and appliances, lost 800 billion won, because the memory Samsung sells to itself got expensive too.
The memory numbers are the ones to keep. HBM4 revenue more than tripled from the second quarter and is now about 60% of Samsung's sales. The company says next year's HBM supply talks closed at its target prices with the full volume sold, that it has long-term agreements with 10 major customers, and that it expects supply to stay tight through 2028. Capital spending for 2026 is 84.4 trillion won, 76.8 trillion of it for chips.
The shares closed down 4.13% at 232,000 won. Samsung declared a 30 trillion won quarterly dividend, more than 12 times the per-share payout of each earlier quarter this year, but left 55 to 75 trillion won of its 2026 return plan undecided until a January board meeting. Investors wanted the rest of the plan. One day after SK hynix said it is sold out through 2029, the two largest memory makers are describing the same shortage. SourcesBB
Sources
- BSamsung Electronics' Q3 dividend jumps 12-fold, investors remain disappointed (Korea Times)koreatimes.co.kr
- BSamsung Q3 profit hits record $80.4 billion as shares fall on earnings miss (Korea JoongAng Daily)koreajoongangdaily.com
This story ran in the Morning Brief of October 29th 2026.