After management previously made a high-profile claim that "profit in 2026 will exceed cumulative profits in the past 40 years," the market had generally expected Samsung Electronics to deliver an almost "perfect" second-quarter report card. However, the latest performance guidance showed that Samsung unexpectedly "shorted" on the revenue side, which surprised investors who had been prepared for the beautiful data.
Samsung's latest performance forecast for the second quarter of 2026 shows that the company expects to achieve consolidated sales of 171 trillion won (approximately US$111.76 billion) this quarter, significantly lower than the market's previous consensus estimate of 172.181 trillion won. In the context of the market generally betting on "better than expected", this revenue gap is regarded as a substantial "miss".
In contrast to revenue, there was a strong performance on the profit side. Samsung expects second-quarter operating profit to reach 89.4 trillion won (about $58.43 billion), higher than analysts' previous consensus estimate of about $55.6 billion. In the first quarter of this year, Samsung recorded revenue of 116.81 trillion won and operating profit of 57.2 trillion won. At that time, it had demonstrated strong profitability in its storage and semiconductor businesses.
Korean media and analysts pointed out that it is the DS (Device Solutions) business group with semiconductors as its core that currently contributes the main profits to Samsung. It continues to enjoy the "memory dividend" in the context of rising storage demand. However, under the influence of internal performance bonus factors, while the semiconductor department "raised" overall profits, it also dragged down the mobile business to a certain extent. The market expects that Samsung’s mobile business will record an operating loss of approximately 1 trillion won, equivalent to approximately US$653 million, this quarter. The overall situation is quite sluggish.
Earlier this month, Kim Young-kwan, president of strategic business for Samsung Electronics' DS business group, said at an internal town hall meeting that the unit was confident of achieving market expectations for full-year operating profit. Analysts currently predict that Samsung's full-year operating profit in 2026 is expected to reach approximately 300 trillion won, equivalent to approximately US$200 billion. If this figure is realized, it will confirm management's previous bold judgment that "annual profits exceed the sum of the past 40 years."
At the same time, Samsung is negotiating with general DRAM customers and plans to increase related product prices by up to 20% on a quarter-on-quarter basis in the third quarter of this year. This continues the company's continuous price increase strategy since the end of last year: In the first quarter of 2026, Samsung raised general DRAM prices by 90% relative to the reference price in the fourth quarter of 2025; in the second quarter, it further increased the price by 50% to 60%. This series of price increases not only reflects the strong demand in the storage market, but also becomes a key factor supporting the company's high profits.
整体来看，在半导体和存储业务的强劲盈利驱动下，三星第二季度利润表现依旧亮眼，但营收未达市场预期以及移动业务的显著亏损，凸显出这家韩国科技巨头内部结构性分化的现实。 投资者接下来将密切关注三星在手机业务上的调整步伐，以及存储价格上行在需求端是否会引发新一轮波动，从而影响其全年业绩能否如管理层所言“再创新高”。