RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Samsung Electronics, one of the big three memory makers, is making a lot of money. So much money that its cash flow is multiple times what it was making just a handful of years ago. And despite much of its memory being fed straight to AI data centers, it is noting that memory supply will only get worse next year.
That's according to its latest earnings report , where it announced revenue of 171.5 trillion Won (around $119 billion) for the second quarter of 2026. That's a big jump from the 74.6 trillion Won (just under $52 billion) reported in Q2 last year.
The wins don't stop there for Samsung, as it also announced an operating profit of 89.5 trillion Won ($62 billion), which is a significant leap from the 25.5 trillion Won ($17.7 billion) it made during the same period last year.
Despite making more money with higher profit margins than ever before, Samsung highlights the ongoing issues for the future of the market. In the earnings call (via Investing ), Daniel Oh, the head of investor relations at Samsung Electronics, says, "The supply constraints are expected to become even more severe in 2027 than 2026, reinforcing our view that the supply shortage will persist through 2028. Beyond 2029, it is hard to say because of more limited visibility."
Oh also confirms that customers are asking for multi-year supply agreements to get sufficient capacity going forward. These sorts of agreements make sense for customers as Samsung believes "it will be unlikely to see any significant increase in incremental supply through 2028", and it also means the company have guaranteed sales bookd in for 60 - 70% of its total production capacity with such long-term agreements.
(Image credit: Future)
Samsung has also said it's likely that unmet demand from 2026 will carry over into 2027, only compounding the supply problems. Samsung says it is open to multi-year arrangements as it hedges mid- to long-term risk for the manufacturer.
SK hynix, one of the other big three memory manufacturers, has also just announced its quarterly earnings , and despite making a whopping $55.6 billion, that's not enough to please investors. It was expected to have made $58 billion by the end of June, and analysts attribute that 'lacking' revenue to the slowing of HBM4 shipments.
The memory crisis has put constraints on all sorts of hardware in all sorts of ways, and those seeking to make the biggest profits are the memory makers and the AI creators. They are arguably both at fault for the crisis in the first place.
Despite concerns from SK hynix and Samsung around supply, both companies are seeing record profits and seem to be milking the memory crisis for all its worth.
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