Korean memory makers eye bumper year to extend into 2026

Cleanroom inside Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor plant Courtesy of Samsung Electronics — Cleanroom inside Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor plant/ Courtesy of Samsung Electronics

SEOUL, December 09 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics Co. and SK hynix Inc., enjoying their best-yet bumper cycle, are set to reap more than $20 billion in combined operating income for the quarter ending December, according to upgrades by brokerage houses following stronger-than-expected price gains in memory chips from mass-market to high end.

Kiwoom Securities on Monday projected SK hynix’s fourth-quarter operating profit at 16.2 trillion won ($11 billion), about 1.6 trillion won above the market consensus estimate of 14.6 trillion won. Its mainstay DRAM business, led by high-bandwidth memory (HBM), is expected to deliver 15.3 trillion won, while NAND flash profit is seen at 900 billion won—up 39 percent and 170 percent, respectively, from the previous quarter.

KB Securities projected on Tuesday that Samsung Electronics will record an operating profit of 19 trillion won in the fourth quarter, a 192 percent jump from a year earlier, comfortably beating the market consensus of 14.9 trillion won. Operating profit from the chip division is expected to surge fivefold year on year and double from the previous quarter to 15.1 trillion won, with DRAM operating margins improving to 53 percent from 32 percent in the same period last year.

Industry watchers predict the red-hot earnings streak to extend into 2026, citing severe supply constraints across memory products including mainstream DRAM. As major cloud service providers rush to secure memory components for AI data centers, prices of HBM, DRAM, and NAND all continue to push north.

Financial data provider FnGuide estimates Samsung Electronics’ 2026 operating profit will exceed 80 trillion won ($54.3 billion), while SK hynix’s is forecast at 73.24 trillion won ($49.7 billion). The projections suggest the two Korean companies are heading into one of the most profitable stretches in global semiconductor history.

“Samsung has reportedly raised contract prices for server DRAM by 60 percent to 80 percent in the fourth quarter,” said Kim Dong-won, head of research at KB Securities.

“Despite these steep hikes, many customers other than big tech companies haven’t been able to secure sufficient supply since November, suggesting prices will continue to climb aggressively.”

The surge in chip demand is likely to intensify as Google’s latest AI model, Gemini 3.0, equipped with Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), enters direct competition with Nvidia’s GPUs. Analysts say the rise of such new architectures signals an expansion of the semiconductor market and sustained demand for high-performance memory chips.

Lee Jung-woo cannes2030@ajupress.com