Samsung projected an operating profit of 57.2 trillion won ($37.92 billion) for Q1 2026. Revenue is expected to reach 133 trillion won for the quarter, a 68 percent jump year over year.

That’s more than the South Korean chipmaker earned across all of 2025, and it’s nearly triple the previous record quarterly profit of 20 trillion won, set just three months ago.

While analysts expected 40.6 trillion won, Samsung blew past that by a margin that should embarrass forecasters.

Samsung’s chip division did the heavy lifting, generating an estimated 54 trillion won in operating profit, which is 95 percent of the company’s total target; everything else is basically noise.

Data center buildouts have been draining the world’s memory supply for months now, pulling chips away from phones and PCs and game consoles, and tightening supply enough that contract DRAM prices shot up roughly 50% in Q1 alone.

The company’s Mobile Business posted a 4 trillion won profit despite pressure on component costs. Meanwhile, rising memory and materials costs, compounded by Middle East supply chain friction, will squeeze margins in Q2.

“As customers anticipated further increases, actual contract prices came in higher, leading to the beat,” said Kim Sunwoo, senior analyst at Meritz Securities. Straightforward.

Samsung went from a 6.69 trillion won operating profit one year ago to 57.2 trillion won today. The AI gold rush isn’t coming, but it already ran through Samsung’s books.

Full quarterly results drop on April 30.

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