Samsung Q2 2026 — The Semiconductor Division Was the Company

The setup

This is the print the whole memory complex had been building toward — the one this newsletter has tracked through the DRAM/NAND settlement, the HBM lock-ups, and Micron's take-or-pay contract print a month earlier. Samsung walked in as the last and largest of the three DRAM makers to report the quarter, with the bar already set by an early-July guidance preview that flagged operating profit up roughly eighteenfold year-on-year — and by a share price that had already run hard on the memory cycle. When the preview is that strong, the full print has to carry the forward story, not just the trailing number. This one cleared it on the trailing line and then some, and shifted the argument to duration.

Samsung is the only company that makes DRAM, NAND, and HBM at scale and runs a leading-edge logic foundry and ships the handsets and displays that consume the parts — a vertically integrated whole where the memory boom lifts one division while it taxes another. The second quarter (ended June 2026) is the quarter in which the AI memory shortage hit full force through Samsung's own P&L, and in which management formalized a commercial posture — long-term, floor-priced supply — designed to outlast the cycle that produced the record.

The numbers

Consolidated revenue was KRW 171.5T (~$116B), up 28% sequentially and an all-time quarterly high. Consolidated operating profit was KRW 89.5T (~$60B) — also an all-time high, up roughly eighteenfold year-on-year — at a 52.2% operating margin (up 9.4 points sequentially) on a 69.6% gross margin (from 61.2% the prior quarter). EPS was KRW 10,849 (~$7.30), up 52%. At the prevailing exchange rate near ₩1,480 to the dollar, that operating profit is roughly $60B in a single quarter, the largest quarterly operating profit the company has ever posted (USD conversions throughout are approximate and unverified to the rate).

The composition is the story. The Device Solutions (DS) semiconductor division delivered KRW 127.5T (~$86B) of revenue (+56% sequentially) and KRW 89.2T (~$60B) of operating profit at a ~70% operating margin — which is to say the chip unit accounted for essentially the entire company operating result, with the other divisions netting to roughly flat around it. Inside DS, memory revenue was a record KRW 120.8T (~$82B), up 62% sequentially and 471% year-on-year, on all-time-high bit shipments for both DRAM and NAND and a server mix at a record share of sales. Samsung Display (SDC) posted KRW 7.5T (~$5B) of revenue and KRW 0.7T (~$0.5B) of operating profit. And the Mobile Experience (MX) division swung to a KRW 0.7T (~$0.5B) operating loss on KRW 33.2T (~$22B) of revenue — the handset business squeezed, in part, by the very memory prices its sister division is printing records on. When the captive buyer goes into the red because internal input costs are rising that fast, that is itself a datapoint about how tight memory has become.

Capital spending underlines the commitment: Q2 capex was KRW 16.8T (~$11B), up KRW 5.5T sequentially, with KRW 15.4T (~$10B) allocated to DS and the balance to displays and R&D. Every headline consolidated line — revenue, operating profit, margin, EPS — set a record.