Behind Samsung Electronics' record $60.9 billion operating profit lies a story that concerns far more than investors in Seoul — it affects everyone planning to buy a laptop, phone, or even a regular SSD drive over the next two years.
The company's profit jumped 28% per quarter not because Koreans massively started buying Samsung televisions. Quite the opposite — the consumer electronics and mobile devices division showed a 9% sales decline. The entire record was made by memory: DRAM and NAND chips, and especially HBM — specialized high-speed memory without which no powerful AI accelerator operates.
A shortage that won't just affect data centers
S&P directly names the reason for current prices in its analysis: "supply deficit." Memory manufacturers — Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron — are reorienting their capacity toward HBM for AI servers because the margins there are much higher than on ordinary chips for smartphones or laptops. As a result, fewer factory lines remain for "ordinary" memory, while demand for it doesn't disappear.
This is the same mechanism that in 2021, during the pandemic chip shortage, drove up prices for cars and household appliances. Only now instead of a virus — it's a race for AI infrastructure, and according to S&P's forecast, it will last at least until 2028.
"By timely satisfying high demand for artificial intelligence solutions, despite limited manufacturing capacity and focus mainly on server products," — this is how Samsung Electronics explained the source of record profit.
Who earns and who pays
S&P forecasts that Samsung's EBITDA will grow from $61.9 billion in 2025 to $267.3 billion in 2026 — nearly four times over. For comparison: Ukraine's entire state budget for 2025 is smaller than just Samsung's projected profit for next year.
The money for this growth doesn't come out of thin air. Higher prices for data center memory automatically drive up the production cost of any device with chips — from gaming consoles to industrial controllers. Electronics manufacturers are already signaling component price increases; the only question is when the end consumer will feel this in store shelf prices.
Three companies, one trillion
In spring 2026, all three major memory manufacturers — Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron — crossed the $1 trillion market capitalization mark for the first time in history. SK Hynix even surpassed Samsung and became South Korea's most expensive company for the first time in 26 years — precisely due to its bet on HBM chips for AI.
This means that the memory market is no longer a cyclical business with periods of booms and busts, but rather strategic infrastructure comparable in importance to the oil market or lithography equipment market. Three companies control virtually all global HBM production — and their manufacturing decisions determine how quickly and expensively artificial intelligence will develop in the coming years.
If demand for AI computing continues to grow at the pace of the last two years, and memory manufacturers continue to prioritize servers over mass-market electronics — ordinary consumer gadgets should be expected to become more expensive throughout 2026–2027, until new factory capacity catches up with demand.
