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Samsung Electronics expects to post its highest operating profit in three years on the back of high demand for memory chips used in artificial intelligence, after several quarters of tepid growth fuelled concerns it was losing ground to rivals.
The tech conglomerate on Tuesday said operating profit in the quarter ending in September rose more than 30 per cent compared with a year ago to Won12.1tn ($8.5bn).
The figure is significantly higher than the Won9.7tn forecast by analysts as compiled by Bloomberg.
Samsung’s shares rose as much as 3 per cent to a record high of Won97,500 on Tuesday. The company’s stock has rallied more than 66 per cent in the past six months as a result of the AI boom.
The South Korean chipmaker this month signed a letter of intent with OpenAI to supply semiconductors for the ChatGPT maker’s $500bn Stargate data centre project.
Samsung accounts for just over a quarter of the global market for high-bandwidth memory products, which are used in Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips, with SK Hynix and US-based Micron the other leading groups in the sector, according to consultancy TrendForce.
The numbers were released in an earnings guidance and were not broken down by division. The company expects to deliver full earnings at the end of this month.
