Samsung Breaks 100 Trillion Won Barrier, Shares Still Drop

Samsung Electronics shares ended Thursday's session down 4.13%, recovering from an intraday slide of as much as 5%, after the South Korean technology group posted third-quarter operating profit that landed almost exactly where analysts had expected.

Revenue reached 195.25 trillion won ($124 billion), marginally short of the 195.79 trillion won forecast in LSEG SmartEstimates. Operating profit came in at 107.44 trillion won, against an expected 107.66 trillion won.

Sales climbed 126.88% from a year earlier and 13.85% from the previous quarter, while operating profit surged 783.11% year on year. Samsung described itself as the first global technology company to exceed 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit, and it extended its run of record revenue and profit to a fourth consecutive quarter.

Strong demand for memory chips used in artificial intelligence drove the result. The semiconductor division generated 147.1 trillion won in revenue and 106.5 trillion won in operating profit, while the memory unit set its own quarterly records, helped by a sharp increase in HBM4 sales and rising orders for server solid-state drives.

The company declared a third-quarter cash dividend of 30 trillion won, or 4,601 won for each common and preferred share. It intends to return a further 55 trillion to 75 trillion won to shareholders this year through dividends and buybacks, with the board due to settle total returns and execution details at a meeting in late January 2027.

Investors responded with little enthusiasm. Josh Gilbert, lead APAC analyst at investment platform eToro, said the market has grown so accustomed to the AI trade that record earnings are now seen as the minimum expectation rather than a cause for celebration. He noted that the chip business generated nearly all of Samsung's third-quarter operating profit, underscoring its deepening dependence on memory. "Anyone holding the stock today is really holding a memory maker with a phone business attached," he said, adding that the group's fortunes now hinge heavily on memory prices.

Samsung expects AI infrastructure spending to accelerate in 2027, a trend it believes will tighten memory supply further. It plans to expand sales of HBM, the high-performance memory used in AI chips.

During the quarter, Samsung Electronics and five affiliates committed a combined $1 billion to KKR-backed Helix Digital Infrastructure, with the flagship contributing $500 million. It partnered with French AI startup Mistral AI, whose Series D round it led, to apply AI in chip design and manufacturing.