SEOUL, October 29 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics' semiconductor division earned 106.5 trillion won ($79.5 billion) in operating profit in the quarter ended September, accounting for nearly all of the South Korean electronics giant's record quarterly earnings and more than offsetting weakness in its non-chip businesses.
Operating profit at the Device Solutions (DS) division jumped about 20 percent from the previous quarter and more than 15-fold from a year earlier on revenue of 147.1 trillion won, generating an operating margin of 72 percent, according to the company's finalized results released Thursday.
The results underscored Samsung's rapid advance in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market, where the world's largest memory maker was a latecomer. Explosive demand for chips powering AI accelerators and data centers has tightened supply across the broader memory market, driving up prices and profits.
Samsung shared local rival SK hynix's view that memory supply constraints could persist through 2027, sustaining the industry's earnings boom.
The company also announced a 30 trillion won third-quarter cash dividend, with plans for substantial share buybacks and cancellations as part of its remaining shareholder returns.
Samsung's consolidated operating profit reached 107.4 trillion won ($80.2 billion), up 20.01 percent from the previous quarter and nearly ninefold from a year earlier, confirming its preliminary earnings guidance released on Oct. 8. Revenue rose 14 percent on quarter to 195.3 trillion won.
Samsung's shares were down 5.17 percent at 229,500 won as of 10:40 a.m. in Seoul on Thursday, despite the record earnings.
Samsung's Device eXperience (DX) division, which oversees smartphones, televisions and home appliances, posted an operating loss of 0.8 trillion won, broadly unchanged from the previous quarter.
Its non-chip businesses have experienced the AI memory boom from the opposite side. The sharp rise in chip prices has squeezed margins on smartphones and consumer electronics, making the devices more costly to produce and less profitable to sell.
The widening earnings divide has also deepened internal tensions over performance bonuses tied to divisional profits, leaving employees in Samsung's consumer businesses with far smaller rewards than their counterparts in the booming chip division.
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