Samsung Electronics said in a Thursday regulatory filing that it expects third-quarter operating profit nearly ninefold up from a year earlier, amid a surge in demand for components such as memory for AI data centres.

The company said it expects an operating profit for the quarter of approximately 107.4 trillion won ($80bn, £60bn), up from 12.17tn won in the third quarter of last year.

Sales are expected to be approximately 195tn won, more than double the 86.6tn won in sales for the same quarter a year earlier.

Memory shortages

Consolidated sales for the second quarter of 2026 were 171.5tn won, while the operating profit for the second quarter was 89.49tn won.

The figures mark Samsung’s fourth consecutive quarter of record operating profit, fuelled by shortages for components such as DRAM and NAND memory and the emerging high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a key component in AI servers.

Record profits

Samsung, the world’s largest memory maker, is expected to release detailed results, including a breakdown of earnings by business division, on 29 October, with memory chips expected to account for the majority of its growth.

Large profits in recent quarters have spurred labour unrest, with the company earlier this year narrowly averting a strike in a deal that allocated a larger portion of profits to staff bonuses.