Seoul: Samsung Electronics on Thursday said it has posted record operating profit and sales in the fourth quarter of 2025 on strong sales of premium semiconductor products, including high bandwidth memory (HBM), amid the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom.Â
The company said in a regulatory filing that it posted 20.07 trillion won ($13.9 billion) in operating profit for the quarter, compared with 6.49 trillion won a year ago. Revenue rose 23.8 percent on-year to 93.83 trillion won.
Net profit came to 19.64 trillion won, up 153.3 percent from the same period in 2024.
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The earnings beat market expectations. The average estimate of net profit by analysts stood at 18.6 trillion won, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.
The device solutions division (DS), which covers chips, also posted a record operating profit of 16.4 trillion won in the October-December period on the back of strong sales of general DRAM and HBM products, compared with 2.9 trillion won posted a year earlier.
Samsung Electronics said a hike in global memory prices, along with robust demand for premium products, including corporate-bound solid-state drives (SSDs), also led to the record performance.
The device experience (DX) division, which includes mobile and TV businesses, posted a combined operating profit of 1.3 trillion won.
In detail, the mobile business posted an operating profit of 1.9 trillion won, down from 2.1 trillion won a year earlier.
The home appliances business posted an operating loss of 600 billion won, compared with an operating profit of 200 billion won in the fourth quarter of 2024, due mainly to global tariff issues, the company said.
In the fourth quarter, Samsung Electronics said it spent 10.9 trillion won on its research activities, leading to record annual spending of 37.7 trillion won to secure future growth engines.
The amount of facility investment for the October–December period reached 20.4 trillion won. The total spending for 2025 came to 52.7 trillion won, with the DS division accounting for 47.5 trillion won.
For all of 2025, Samsung Electronics posted a net income of 45.2 trillion won, up 31.2 percent from a year earlier.
Operating profit for the year was 43.6 trillion won, up 33.2 percent from the previous year, the company said. Annual sales rose 10.9 percent to 333.6 trillion won.
Samsung Electronics’ annual operating profit across its entire business portfolio fell behind that of its chip rival SK hynix Inc. at 47.2 trillion won for the first time.
Looking ahead, Samsung Electronics said it expects to maintain growth led by the semiconductor business amid growing demand from the AI and server sectors.
The South Korean tech giant said it plans to proactively respond to strong demand for premium memory chips for AI solutions.
In terms of the mobile division, Samsung Electronics said it aims to take leadership in the smartphone sector with AI-related features, along with the new Galaxy S26 models set to be showcased next month.
The company said it will seek to bolster sales of home appliances by applying AI technology and focusing on premium lineups.
Samsung Electronics added it will offer special dividends worth 1.3 trillion won, bringing total payouts for the fourth quarter to 3.7 trillion won. Total dividends for fiscal 2025 amounted to 11.1 trillion won.
