There are brands that are part of our routine almost without us realizing it. Samsung is one of them. For many, it is the cell phone we carry in our pocket, the television in the living room or that appliance we use every day. Therefore, when we look at what is happening with the company in the first months of this year, the surprise is inevitable. In a context where a good part of the technology industry deals with rising costs and certain instability, Samsung is projecting results that have significantly exceeded forecasts.
And this is where the story is truly understood. This mismatch with the more restrained tone that a good part of the sector carries is not coincidental, and the data helps put it in context. We are not just talking about an impression, but something that is clearly seen. As soon as we stop to look at the numbers calmly, the picture changes and what is happening with Samsung these days begins to make sense.
The rise of artificial intelligence has clear winners and Samsung is one of them
The South Korean giant estimates that its operating profit in the first quarter of 2026 could be around 57.2 trillion won, about 37.9 billion dollars, compared to 6.69 trillion won (4.525 million dollars) recorded in the same period of the previous year. The figure exceeds the 43.6 trillion won that the company obtained in all of 2025, which implies that In just three months he has earned more than in the entire previous year. In parallel, revenue would also advance strongly with growth of nearly 70% year-on-year, and above 100 trillion won in a single quarter for the first time.
The impressive jump in Samsung’s profit in 2026 after several years of ups and downs | Graphic: Xataka | Source: Samsung/Blooomberg
It is important to understand well what we are talking about. Operating profit measures how much a company earns from its core business, before taxes, interest and other financial factors. That is, it gives us a pretty clean idea of how the business itself is working. It is not the same as the net profit, which does include all those adjustments and is the final figure. In the case of Samsung, these data are still preliminary: the company will publish its complete results, with the breakdown by divisions, on April 30.
But it’s not enough to look at the accounts, you also have to look at the business. Samsung not only sells devices, it is also one of the largest memory manufacturers in the world, an essential piece in any technological infrastructure. And this is where the story changes scale: a good part of that memory does not end up in cell phones or televisionsbut on servers and data centers that support AI services. It is a business that is less visible to the general public, but much more decisive at this time. What we are seeing, in reality, is the direct impact of that other Samsung, the one that operates at the base of the current technological revolution.
The key is to understand that production capacity is limited. As Micron explained a few months agomanufacturers cannot multiply their production from one day to the next, so they have to prioritize. And right now a good part of the industry is directing its resources towards AI. The systems that make it possible need large amounts of advanced memory, especially HBM, and that has pushed manufacturers to focus on that segment. It is not only a technical issue, but also an economic one, because these chips offer better margins and much more intense demand.
The side effect appears immediately. If an increasing part of the capacity is dedicated to that advanced memory, other products take a backseat and supply becomes strained. That is exactly what is happening with DRAM, one of the most widespread types of memory in consumer electronics. According to Citigroup, quoted by Bloomberg, its global average price rose by 64% in the first quarter compared to the previous one. The consequence is direct: manufacturing mobile phones, computers and other equipment becomes more expensivewhich puts pressure on margins and forces us to review costs, configurations or prices.
It is not worth losing sight of the fact that Samsung is a South Korean company, and that is more important than it seems. We are talking about the largest company in the country and one of the best reflections of the technological muscle that South Korea has built around semiconductors. In addition, it does not play alone: it competes in the same league as other large memory manufacturers such as SK Hynix, also South Korean, and Micron, in the United States. A good part of the memory used by the world is shared between these actors, which turns their decisions into something that goes far beyond their own accounts.
If we think about it for a moment, it makes a lot of sense. All of this AI fever is being built on top of data centers filled with very specific hardware. NVIDIA is the clearest example, because its chips are at the center of that infrastructure and have captured much of the attention. But those systems don’t work alone. In order to train models and operating on a large scale require enormous amounts of memory, and that’s where Samsung fits. It does not occupy the symbolic place that NVIDIA has today, but it does benefit from the same wave of investment from a less visible and, as we have seen, very profitable position.
Images | Xataka with Bano Bana | Samsung
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