Samsung's profits from memory business go even higher

With the AI boom causing a memory shortage, the prices of memory chips have been skyrocketing, resulting in memory manufacturers, including Samsung, reaping creamy profits from the situation. Last month, we learned that Samsung’s DRAM prices have surged by up to 50%. Well, it looks like the South Korean tech giant is milking the situation even further.

According to a new report from Hankyung, the DRAM prices that Samsung (and SK Hynix) have proposed to companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are 60% to 70% higher than what they had quoted in the fourth quarter of last year (via Jukan). With that, their profits from the DRAM business this year are expected to be 3 times higher than last year.

Commenting on the matter, DRAM market research firm DRAMeXchange said, “Large clients view the spending required for AI infrastructure as ‘sufficiently bearable.' There is an atmosphere of not strongly resisting the DRAM price increase, based on the judgment that the monetization of inference AI is more important.”

However, memory shortage is a double-edged sword for Samsung. On one hand, it is reaping amazing profits from the memory business, and on the other, it is having to increase the prices of its upcoming non-foldable flagship phones, the Galaxy S26 series, which could impact its sales and result in lower profits from the mobile business.