Samsung’s third quarter tells two opposite stories. Consolidated sales hit roughly KRW 195 trillion ($145.33 billion) with operating profit around KRW 107.40 trillion ($80 billion) — a record, powered by insatiable AI demand for memory chips. For comparison, Q2 managed KRW 171.5 trillion in sales and KRW 89.49 trillion in profit; Q3 last year was KRW 86.06 trillion and KRW 12.17 trillion.
The split
- Chip division: soaring — AI memory demand is the engine behind the record quarter
- Phone division (MX): squeezed — reportedly cutting Q4 smartphone production by up to 30% as memory prices explode; an industry source says Galaxy phones are selling at effectively zero profit
Samsung is now a company where the component boom enriches one half of the business while starving the other. How long that tension holds — and whether it shows up in 2026 phone prices — is the story to watch.