SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics reported a record operating profit of 20 trillion won, or about $13.8 billion, for the October–December quarter, marking the first time the company has crossed that level in a single quarter, driven by a strong recovery in the global semiconductor market.
The fourth-quarter operating profit surged more than 200 percent from a year earlier, Samsung said in a preliminary earnings release. If confirmed, it would be the highest quarterly operating profit in the company’s history.
Quarterly sales rose 22.7 percent year-on-year to 93 trillion won, also a record and the first time Samsung’s quarterly revenue has exceeded 90 trillion won. The company did not disclose net profit figures.
The reported operating profit was 1.8 percent higher than the average market estimate, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data arm of Yonhap News Agency.
Samsung did not provide a detailed breakdown of earnings by business division, saying it would release a full earnings report later this month.
Analysts said the strong performance was largely driven by improved profitability in the Device Solutions division, which houses Samsung’s core semiconductor business. According to Korea Investment & Securities, global prices of dynamic random-access memory and NAND flash memory jumped about 40 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the previous three-month period.
Market estimates put the operating profit of the Device Solutions division at around 16 trillion to 17 trillion won, a sharp increase from about 7 trillion won in the third quarter.
Analysts also said losses in Samsung’s non-memory semiconductor business likely narrowed, contributing to the overall improvement in the division’s performance.
Samsung’s mobile business is estimated to have generated operating profit of around 2 trillion won during the quarter, while the home appliance segment is believed to have posted an operating loss of roughly 100 billion won, according to market watchers.
For the full year 2025, Samsung Electronics estimated annual operating profit of 43.53 trillion won, up 33 percent from a year earlier. Annual sales rose 10.6 percent to 332.77 trillion won. Net profit figures were not disclosed.
Looking ahead, analysts said Samsung is expected to maintain strong momentum in 2026, supported by expanded production capacity for high-bandwidth memory used in advanced computing and artificial intelligence applications.
“This year, Samsung Electronics is expected to post annual operating profit of about 123 trillion won, driven by a sharp rise in DRAM prices and increased shipments of high-bandwidth memory,” said Kim Dong-won, a researcher at KB Securities. (Source: IANS)
