Samsung's operating profit hits a record 107.4 trillion won in Q3 on AI chip demand
Samsung Electronics announced on Thursday 29 October 2026 that revenue for the third quarter ended 30 September 2026 was 195.3 trillion won, an all-time quarterly high and up 14% on the previous quarter, per the company's own results release, read in full. Operating profit reached 107.4 trillion won — Samsung says it is the world's first tech company to exceed 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit — driven by its semiconductor division, whose Memory Business set all-time highs for revenue and operating profit. Reuters reports the same 107.4 trillion won operating profit, about $80.04 billion, up from 12.2 trillion won a year earlier and in line with Samsung's earlier estimate.
Key points
- Samsung revenue for the quarter ended 30 September 2026 was 195.3 trillion won, an all-time quarterly high, up 14% on the previous quarter, per the company's own results release, read in full, cross-checked against Reuters.
- Operating profit reached 107.4 trillion won (about $80.04 billion per Reuters), up from 12.2 trillion won a year earlier; Samsung says it is the first tech company to exceed 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit.
- The semiconductor (DS) division earned 106.5 trillion won of that profit on 147.1 trillion won of revenue, with the Memory Business at all-time highs; the devices (DX) division recorded an operating loss of 0.8 trillion won.
- Samsung will pay a third-quarter dividend of 4,601 won per share, totalling 30 trillion won; third-quarter capital expenditure was 29 trillion won, with about 84.4 trillion won expected for the full year.
What happened
These are the full third-quarter results, released on Thursday 29 October 2026 ahead of Samsung's earnings conference call at 10:00 a.m. Korea time the same day, per the company's release and its investor-relations schedule. Samsung had already guided the two headline figures — about 195 trillion won of revenue and 107.4 trillion won of operating profit — in preliminary guidance on 8 October; this release confirms them and adds the division breakdown, the dividend and the capital-expenditure figures.
The results land a day after Microsoft's own earnings, published by Vozia as a confirmed brief on 28 October, and in the same results season in which Samsung's rival SK Hynix reported strong earnings on Wednesday, per Reuters — the pattern across the reports is that AI data-centre demand is driving the chip side of the industry.
Claim by claim
Why this label: From Samsung Electronics' own results release, 'Samsung Electronics Announces Third Quarter 2026 Results', published 29 October 2026 (10:10 Korea time) and read in full for this brief — the company's account of its own results. Reuters' report of the same morning gives the same 107.4 trillion won operating profit, converted as about $80.04 billion, up from 12.2 trillion won a year earlier and in line with Samsung's earlier estimate. The 'first tech company' wording is Samsung's own claim in its release, reported here as the company states it.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: All division figures in this claim are from Samsung's own release, read in full. Reuters likewise attributes the record to robust demand for AI chips and reports Samsung saying the chip supply shortage would deepen next year.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: All figures in this claim are from Samsung's own release, read in full for this brief.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Show all claims (1 more)
Why this label: The dividend figures are from Samsung's own release, read in full; Reuters reports the same 30 trillion won total dividend and 4,601 won per share. The net-profit and year-on-year growth figures are the Korea JoongAng Daily's reporting of the results (published 29 October, read in search in this run): Samsung's release text read for this brief states the quarter-on-quarter revenue increase (+14%) but does not itself state a net-profit figure, so the net-profit figure rests on that report, named here. Reuters' 'up from 12.2 trillion won a year earlier' for operating profit is consistent with the JoongAng Daily's +782.8%. No figure in this claim is Vozia's own estimate.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
What we know / what we don't know yet
What we know
- The headline results, division figures, dividend and capital expenditure — from Samsung Electronics' own results release read in full, cross-checked against Reuters on the operating profit, its year-earlier comparison and the dividend.
What we don't know yet
- What Samsung's executives said on the earnings conference call scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Korea time on 29 October — the call had not been read for this brief at publication.
- A net-profit figure from Samsung's own release text — the release text read in full for this brief does not state one, so the 75.1 trillion won net-profit figure carried here is the Korea JoongAng Daily's reporting, labelled as such in the claim.
- Whether an official video of the earnings announcement was available at publication — the earnings call is a webcast on Samsung's own investor site, and no official Samsung YouTube video of the results was verified via YouTube's oEmbed endpoint in this run, so the brief is published without an embedded video rather than using a third-party upload.
Why it matters
Samsung is the world's largest memory-chip maker, and a quarterly operating profit above 100 trillion won — earned almost entirely by its semiconductor division while its phone, TV and appliance units posted losses — is a direct measure of how much of the AI boom's money is currently landing with the companies that make the chips, not only with the companies that buy them.
Update history
No silent edits. Every change is written here, with its time.
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Story published as a confirmed brief, based on Samsung Electronics' own third-quarter 2026 results release of 29 October 2026, read in full, cross-checked against Reuters' same-morning report. The release confirms the headline figures Samsung guided on 8 October and adds the division breakdown, dividend and capital-expenditure figures.