Samsung Electronics reported a record second-quarter operating profit of 89.5 trillion won ($62 billion), a staggering 1,814% jump from a year earlier. Revenue climbed 28% quarter over quarter to 171.5 trillion won, also a company record. But the celebration was short-lived: Samsung shares fell more than 12% on Wednesday, and rival SK Hynix tumbled nearly 20% the same day after its own record profit missed analyst estimates.
Memory chip boom powers the numbers
The star performer was Samsung's Device Solutions division, which houses its memory chip business. Sales there jumped 56% from the previous quarter, with the memory arm setting new records for both revenue and operating profit. Samsung has been prioritizing server products to meet the exploding demand for AI computing capacity. Server chips now make up a record share of its memory mix.
The company also said it has scaled up production of its next-generation HBM4 memory and shipped the first samples of HBM4E to major customers. High-bandwidth memory is critical for training large AI models, and Samsung recently signed supply deals with Nvidia and Broadcom.
Investor jitters despite strong outlook
Samsung's stock is still up roughly 75% year-to-date, but the sharp drop on Wednesday shows that some investors are getting nervous. The concern: can the memory boom keep going? Analysts broadly expect demand for server memory and high-bandwidth chips to stay strong through the second half of 2026. Samsung itself forecast accelerating demand for those products.
But SK Hynix's earnings miss — even while posting a record profit — raised questions about whether the sector's growth is slowing or if costs are rising faster than expected. Samsung's own shares had been climbing for months, and the pullback suggests the market is looking for signs of a ceiling.
Samsung's strategy and the competition
Analyst MS Hwang of Counterpoint said Samsung is leveraging its memory dominance to capture share across other business units. The company's broad portfolio — from chips to smartphones to displays — gives it a cushion that pure-play memory makers lack. Still, the memory cycle is notoriously volatile, and some investors question how long the AI-driven surge can last.
For now, Samsung is riding the wave. The company has locked in major customers and is pushing ahead with next-gen products. The question hanging over the stock is whether the market has already priced in years of growth — and what happens when the data center buildout slows.
