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Thursday, October 8, 2026

How Samsung is winning at AI

 

Samsung Electronics estimated on Thursday that its third-quarter operating profit jumped almost ninefold to a record 107.4 trillion won, or $80.2 billion, while sales at Taiwan's TSMC hit a quarterly record, as the AI boom keeps demand for chips strong.

Two of Asia's biggest chipmakers have delivered blockbuster results, with Samsung on course for its most profitable quarter ever and TSMC booking a record three months of revenue, driven by spending on artificial intelligence.

The South Korean group estimated its operating profit for the third quarter at 107.4 trillion won, or $80.2 billion (€71.5bn), up from 89.49 trillion won (€59.6bn) in the previous quarter and 12.17 trillion won (€8.1bn) a year earlier.

This would represent an increase of 782.5% year-on-year.

The figure, if confirmed, would be the biggest quarterly operating profit ever reported by a technology company, beating the $63.7 billion (€56.8bn) in operating income that US chip designer Nvidia booked in its latest quarter.

It would also be the first time a South Korean company's quarterly operating profit had topped 100 trillion won (€66.6bn), and Samsung's fourth record quarter in a row.

Analysts had expected 106.1 trillion won (€70.6bn), according to data provider LSEG.

Sales are estimated at 195 trillion won, or $145.6 billion (€129.9bn), up 127% year-on-year, implying an operating margin of about 55%.

amsung, one of the world's biggest memory chipmakers, is cashing in as AI data centres snap up high-bandwidth memory (HBM), stacked chips that feed data to AI processors, while tight supply also pushes up prices of DRAM and NAND memory.

The company gave no breakdown by division and will publish full results on 29 October.

Its shares nonetheless closed 2.42% lower at 262,000 won in Seoul on Thursday, as investors took profits and questioned how long the memory boom can last, while the benchmark KOSPI index lost 2.62%.

Samsung's stock has still almost quadrupled since last September.

TSMC's record quarter and Taiwan's record exports

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, whose customers include Nvidia and Apple, said on Thursday that September revenue rose 54.6% year-on-year to NT$511.86 billion, or roughly $16 billion (€14bn).

That was only 0.6% below August's all-time monthly high and took estimated third-quarter revenue, calculated from its monthly figures, to a record NT$1.49 trillion, or $46.8 billion (€41.8bn), up 51% on a year earlier and 17.6% on the previous quarter.

The total beat the top of TSMC's own guidance of $44.6 billion (€39.8bn) to $45.8 billion (€40.8bn), while revenue for the first nine months of the year rose 41.1% to NT$3.9 trillion, or $122.1 billion (€108.9bn).

https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/08/samsung-flags-783-profit-jump-to-record-80bn-as-ai-chip-boom-also-lifts-tsmc-sales

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