Samsung’s chip profit soars after AI fuels demand for memory

Group 1 - Samsung Electronics Co.'s semiconductor division reported an operating profit of 7 trillion won ($4.9 billion) for the September quarter, exceeding analysts' expectations of 4.7 trillion won, indicating a recovery driven by global AI demand [1] - The company achieved a net income of 12.01 trillion won, surpassing analysts' estimate of 9.29 trillion won, reflecting strong preliminary operating profit and revenue [2] - Samsung's memory chip business is crucial to its overall operations, but it has lost leadership in a market where customers prioritize premium memory capacity for AI capabilities [3] Group 2 - The demand for conventional memory products is increasing, benefiting Samsung, which has seen its stock price rise approximately 90% since the beginning of the year, although SK Hynix's shares have more than tripled in the same timeframe [4] - Investors are optimistic about Samsung's ability to leverage its scale to improve its position in high-bandwidth memory, as it regained its status as the top memory maker by revenue in Q3 due to AI-related investments boosting prices and sales volumes of DRAM and NAND [5] - Samsung has secured an order from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and is awaiting final approval for HBM3E and next-generation HBM4 chips from Nvidia, while also supplying chips for OpenAI's Stargate project [6]