Samsung’s profit margin just beat Apple’s. Let that sink in for a second. The South Korean electronics giant reported an estimated operating profit of KRW 107.4 trillion (roughly $79.8 billion) for Q3 2026, on revenue of KRW 195 trillion (about $144.9 billion). That’s a 55% profit margin, the highest in the company’s history. Samsung has officially out-margined Apple, at least for one quarter.
The year-over-year numbers are almost hard to believe. Compared to Q3 2025, profit is up 782.5%. That’s not a typo. Revenue grew 126% in the same period. These are still preliminary estimates — final figures come later this month and could shift slightly — but even if they’re in the ballpark, this is a genuinely remarkable turnaround for a company that was posting much more modest numbers just a year ago.
The driving force here is memory chips. Samsung is the world’s biggest memory chip maker, and AI is hungry for chips. The ongoing boom in AI infrastructure spending has sent demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) through the roof, and Samsung is cashing in. The company has already started selling HBM4 chips to Nvidia, and it has reportedly cleared Nvidia’s quality approval for HBM4E chips, which are headed for the Rubin Ultra AI platform. That’s a big deal. Getting Nvidia’s stamp of approval on next-gen chips means Samsung is well-positioned to keep riding this wave into 2027.
Analysts think next year could be even bigger. Samsung’s operating profit for all of 2027 could hit KRW 550 trillion (around $408.7 billion), roughly 45% higher than this year’s full-year estimates. And this year’s total profit is already expected to exceed Samsung’s cumulative profit over the past 40 years combined. That’s a staggering stat.
But here’s where it gets messy. Not every part of Samsung is thriving. The chip foundry business and System LSI division are still losing money, with a combined estimated loss of around $743 million in Q3 alone. The Texas fab operations are a drag. Samsung’s mobile division, which sells Galaxy phones, tablets, and wearables, is also in the red, with an estimated operating loss of around $1.11 billion. Rising memory chip prices are squeezing the very division that most consumers associate with the Samsung brand. The TV and home appliances businesses are facing losses too, partly because of brutal competition from Chinese brands like Hisense and TCL.
So Samsung is essentially a memory chip company right now, propped up by AI spending, while several of its other businesses struggle. That’s worth keeping in mind. The profit numbers are eye-popping, but the story underneath them is a company still figuring out how to make all its pieces work together.