We are in the middle of the results presentation season. Listed companies share how the last fiscal period went and, although it sounds boring, it allows us to learn interesting details about the business. For example, Apple thinks that the components crisis is going to get much worsebut also where the companies are. Samsung is one of those that can show the most chest due to its good results this beginning of 2026so good that it has achieved for the first time in eight years look face to face at your great rival in chip manufacturing: TSMC.
The asterisk is that it is a mirage.
a fortune. As we read in the South Korean media The Chosun Dailythe semiconductor division of Samsung Electronics is in luck. During the first quarter of this year, they achieved sales worth 81.7 trillion won with an operating profit of 53.7 trillion won. It is the first time that the division has achieved an operating profit of more than 50 billion won, but the most curious thing is the enormous leap they have made since last year.
In the same period in 2025, Samsung reported sales of 44 trillion won with an operating profit of 16.4 trillion won. In fact, the company has earned more in these three months than during all of 2025.
to the podium. This best performance has placed the South Korean company as the second best performing semiconductor company in the world. Who is above? Your best friend: Nvidia. The company that is the glue of AI reported an operating profit of 66 trillion won in this period and the two have gone hand in hand in this period.
Memory (of course). Samsung got a little lost in the memory race for AI due to the good work of its great rival in this segment, also South Korean SK Hynix. However, he did not waste time and took the opportunity to research how to create the best HBM4 memory modules. This is the high-bandwidth memory that is used by artificial intelligence platforms such as those from Nvidia. In fact, a few weeks ago we told how Samsung had managed to convince Nvidia so much as to AMD to choose their HBM4 chips.
Thanks to that impulse, dump all your production to memories for artificial intelligence equipment (regardless of what happens with the consumer market), the company has managed to see sales grow by 69.16% year-on-year and operating profits soar by 756.1%. In fact, the South Korean media points out that, even taking into account the number of devices that Samsung manufactures, the semiconductor division is the one that represented 93.8% of the company’s total operating profit.
Very far away. Now, there is an even more interesting fact. All that amount of money has made Samsung the only semiconductor company that comes close to Nvidia, even surpassing, by far, the largest global semiconductor foundry: the Taiwanese TSMC. However, although the South Koreans’ goal is to dethrone the Taiwanese, things are going to have to change a lot because they are very far away in terms of market share.
Because Samsung is making a lot of money, but there is a huge gap when it comes to contract chip manufacturing for external customers. This means that Nvidia, Apple and many others continue to come to TSMC first than to Samsung to manufacture its chips. Putting it down with numbers, it is estimated that TMSC took 70% of the market share last year compared to Samsung’s 7%.
The plan. And there is a problem in all this: the AI superboom. Because Samsung is doing great selling its memory to hyperscalersbut it is not attracting clients at the same rate and, if at some point the memory market deflates, accounts will begin to decrease.
Samsung is moving to prevent this from happening by opening new chip manufacturing plants, partnering with American companies on American soil to develop the market outside Asia and flirting with being the foundry that manufactures chips for Nvidia or Apple in the United States.
Other sectors. It is evident that the semiconductor arm is going like a rocket, but… what happens with the rest? On mobile and networks, Samsung reported sales of 38.1 trillion won with an operating profit of 2.8 trillion won. This is where investment comes into play. 6G networksbut also recent releases such as those of the family Galaxy S26 that they have not left as much money in the coffers due to increases in memory costs (Samsung already pointed out that They were not going to favor their own division and that if memory is more expensive, it is for everyone).
In Display (TVs and monitors), sales fell 14% year-on-year with operating profits of 400 billion won due to the price of RAM, among other factors, and home appliances had an operating profit of 200 billion won.
It is obvious where the goose that lays the golden eggs is and it is not surprising that Samsung wants to exploit it thoroughly.
Image | Applied Materials
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