Samsung's 2026 profit could top its last 40 years combined

Samsung is about to have the year of its life. Preliminary Q2 2026 numbers land July 7, and analysts expect operating profit near 86 trillion won (~$56B) — roughly 18x the same quarter last year. That would be its third straight record quarter.

The engine isn't phones — it's memory. A brutal shortage has DRAM prices up 44% and NAND up 53% quarter-on-quarter, as AI workloads spill beyond HBM into the entire chip stack. Full-year 2026 operating profit is now projected around 300 trillion won (~$200B). Samsung execs say that single year could surpass the company's cumulative semiconductor profit of the past 40 years.

The original post fudged the timeline — it's the full year, not Q2 alone, that clears the 40-year bar. Still, the scale is staggering: one AI-fueled boom year outweighing four decades of chipmaking.

Why it matters: the AI buildout has turned commodity memory into the most profitable business on Earth — and Samsung is printing.