Samsung Electronics — 2026Q3 财报

“The Company posted KRW 171.5 trillion in consolidated revenue, another all-time quarterly high, representing a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) increase of 28%. Operating profit also reached another all-time high, increasing to KRW 89.5 trillion. Earnings per share for both common and preferred shares increased by 52% to KRW 10,849, among the highest levels for global tech companies.”

Both headline lines set all-time highs and EPS rose 52% to KRW 10,849 — the actual this quarter's verdict is scored on.

“The DS Division posted KRW 127.5 trillion in consolidated revenue and KRW 89.2 trillion in operating profit for the second quarter.”

Essentially the whole company's profit sits in one division: Device Solutions booked KRW 89.2 trillion of operating profit on KRW 127.5 trillion of revenue.

“The Memory Business achieved another record-breaking quarter by proactively addressing AI demand despite limited capacity with a primary focus on server products. The continued industry-wide upward trend of prices also contributed to the record earnings.”

Samsung attributes the memory record to allocation and price rather than to added supply — serving AI demand under limited capacity by prioritising server products, with industry-wide price increases doing the rest.

“The MX and Networks Businesses posted KRW 33.2 trillion in consolidated revenue and reported an operating loss of KRW 0.7 trillion for the second quarter. While revenue grew year-on-year (YoY) on solid sales of the Galaxy S26 series and strong Galaxy A series momentum, earnings declined due to elevated component cost pressures across the industry.”

The group pays its own memory bill: MX and Networks turned KRW 33.2 trillion of revenue into an operating loss of KRW 0.7 trillion, with industry-wide component costs named as the cause even as revenue grew year-on-year.

“In H2 2026, the Memory Business expects robust demand centered on servers stemming from continued AI infrastructure capex and broader adoption of agentic AI. Meanwhile, growth in demand for server DRAM, eSSDs, and HBM is expected to accelerate. This is projected to keep the market undersupplied, despite partial demand moderation in mobile and PCs.”

Guidance for the second half is that the shortage does not clear — accelerating server DRAM, eSSD and HBM demand keeps the market undersupplied, with mobile and PC moderation explicitly not enough to offset it.

“Thus, in the second quarter, DRAM bit shipments increased by the low teens percentage compared to the previous quarter, exceeding our guidance. For NAND, bit shipments increased by a low-single-digit percentage, in line with our guidance. In addition, our ASP in the second quarter rose by mid 40% for DRAM, and high 60% for NAND, compared to the previous quarter.”

Management put a number on the price move the release described only as an industry-wide upward trend: DRAM ASP rose mid 40% and NAND high 60% quarter-on-quarter, while bit shipments rose only low teens for DRAM and a low-single-digit percentage for NAND — the record is priced, not shipped.

“Moreover, despite industry-wide increases in CapEx, considering the lead time from new fab construction to actual wafer production, which exceeds three and a half years, this means that any meaningful increase in supply capacity will take considerable time. So we believe it will be unlikely to see any significant increase in incremental supply through 2028. Based on the incoming requests that we have been seeing from the customers, unmet demand from this year is likely to carry over into the following year, contributing to tighter supply conditions going forward. The supply constraints are expected to become even more severe in 2027 than 2026, reinforcing our view that the supply shortage will persist through 2028.”

The constraint management named runs years past the second-half framing in the release: no significant increase in incremental supply through 2028, because a new fab takes more than three and a half years to reach wafer production, and 2027 is expected to be tighter than 2026.

“For now, we intend to maintain flexibility in supply allocation and plan to allocate approximately 60% to 70% of our total capacity to long-term supply contracts while preserving sufficient capacity to support customers without multi-year contracts. However, there is a growing number of customers seeking multi-year commitments, not to mention those who already have existing deals seeking for additional volume support. But, we actually have been signing multi-year supply agreements based on a five-year term, and this is by contract subject to annual negotiations where the parties can agree to add one additional year, effectively operating on a rolling basis. We want to establish this type of rolling, contract-based business structure for greater visibility, and we have already finalized agreements with the top five global data center customers, are also in the final stages of talks with five additional major accounts to support their AI-related demand.”

Samsung is selling the shortage forward rather than banking spot upside: approximately 60% to 70% of total capacity earmarked for long-term supply contracts on five-year rolling terms, already finalized with the top five global data center customers and five more major accounts in final talks.

“Capex for the second quarter was 16.8 trillion won, representing a sequential increase of 5.5 trillion won. Of this quarterly total, 15.4 trillion won was allocated to the DS Division, while 0.7 trillion won was invested in the Display business. By business segments, capex for Memory increased quarter-on-quarter, as we expanded investments in the new fab in Pyeongtaek and other infrastructure projects on expectations of continued strength in AI demand.”

Capex intent, which the release did not carry: 16.8 trillion won in the quarter, up 5.5 trillion sequentially, 15.4 trillion of it inside DS — and the memory share goes into a new fab in Pyeongtaek, which is capacity built rather than bits available now.

“As negotiations were still underway and the incentive details were not yet finalized, no incentive accrual was recognized in the first quarter. In the second quarter, we recognized a cumulative accrual for the first half reflecting a special performance incentive equivalent to around 10.5% of cumulative first half operating profit. To help with understanding, it's important to note that there is a timing difference under accounting standards between recording a bonus accrual in the financial statements and recognizing the related expense in the income statement. A portion of the second quarter bonus accrual was included in the cost of work in progress inventory as manufacturing labor cost in accordance with accounting standards. Thus, the recognized expense amount in the 2Q income statement is lower than the total bonus accrual. The remaining capitalized amount will be recognized as cost of sales when the related inventory is sold to customers.”

A charge the release never mentioned: nothing was accrued in Q1, so Q2 recorded the whole cumulative first-half accrual for a special performance incentive equivalent to around 10.5% of cumulative first half operating profit — though Samsung is explicit that only part of it reached the 2Q income statement, the rest capitalized into inventory until the goods sell.