[Edaily SOYEON KIM Reporter Song Jae-min] SamsungElectronics posted an operating profit of over 89 trillion won in the second quarter of this year, driven by a boom in the memory semiconductor market. In particular, considering that the company set aside a provision for special management performance bonuses to be paid to employees, its actual operating profit is estimated to have exceeded 100 trillion won. A quarterly operating profit of 100 trillion won is an unprecedented milestone in the history of Korean companies.

SamsungElectronics announced on the 7th that its operating profit for the second quarter of this year, on a consolidated basis, was preliminarily estimated at 89.4 trillion won. This represents a 1,810.26% surge compared to the same period last year. This figure is more than double last year’s annual operating profit (43.6011 trillion won) and exceeds the combined operating profits earned over the three-year period from 2023 to 2025. Revenue reached 171 trillion won, a 129.31% increase compared to the same period last year.

SamsungElectronics’ latest earnings are particularly noteworthy because the company set aside provisions for special performance bonuses in the semiconductor division for the first and second quarters. If the provisions—amounting to approximately 15 trillion to 17 trillion won, or 10.5% of operating profit for the first and second quarters—are excluded, second-quarter operating profit is estimated to have reached approximately 106 trillion won. This far exceeds the all-time quarterly operating profits of global Big Tech companies such as NVIDIA (approximately 82 trillion won), Apple (approximately 78 trillion won), Alphabet (approximately 60 trillion won), and Microsoft (approximately 58 trillion won).

The overwhelming performance was driven by the memory market’s unprecedented boom. The securities industry estimates that operating profit from the memory business alone exceeded 90 trillion won in the second quarter—equivalent to an average daily profit of 1 trillion won. The market forecasts that SamsungElectronics’ annual operating profit this year will reach 370 trillion won, thanks to a surge in memory demand driven by expanded investment in artificial intelligence (AI).

However, SamsungElectronics’ stock price closed down 6.92% at 296,000 won today. This is seen as a sign of weakened investor sentiment following a report by Morgan Stanley suggesting that the earnings momentum driven by the semiconductor business has peaked, hinting at a potential further correction.