Samsung said its operating profit for the three months ended September is expected to surge nearly ninefold compared with a year earlier.

Driven by the AI boom, Samsung Electronics expects its quarterly operating profit to exceed $80 billion for the first time, and the world's largest memory chipmaker looks set to extend its streak of record-breaking profits.

The stunning preliminary estimate puts profit at more than double Samsung's full-year profit for 2025.

With companies pouring money into AI infrastructure and applications, Samsung has become a major beneficiary of the global wave of demand for high-end chips.

Despite the strong results, the forecast fell short of the market's extremely high expectations, and Samsung shares closed down 2.4% at 262,000 won on Thursday.

Even after the pullback, Samsung shares have doubled over the past year; recently, however, concerns about whether the AI investment boom can be sustained have weighed on investor sentiment.

Most analysts and semiconductor industry executives believe memory chip supply will remain tight for years to come and that chip prices will stay elevated.

The preliminary results Samsung released on Thursday further reinforced the industry's optimistic outlook.

Samsung said operating profit for the third quarter ended September surged nearly ninefold from a year earlier to 107.4 trillion won, equivalent to $80.18 billion.

That would make Samsung the first Korean company to post quarterly operating profit above 100 trillion won, and Samsung said it is also the first large technology company in the world to reach that milestone.

The forecast exceeds the previous record of about 89 trillion won set in the second quarter and is broadly in line with market expectations for the third quarter.

Quarterly revenue is also expected to hit a record high, with Samsung forecasting revenue of 195 trillion won, more than double the year-earlier level; the analyst consensus compiled by FactSet was 206.810 trillion won.

Samsung typically does not disclose a breakdown by business segment when it releases preliminary results, but the vast majority of analysts judge that the semiconductor division was the core driver of the quarter's profit explosion, offsetting weak performance in non-chip businesses such as home appliances and mobile phones.

The memory chip upcycle is a double-edged sword for Samsung: higher chip prices benefit its semiconductor business, but rising component costs squeeze profit margins at its other electronics businesses.

Like many Korean exporters, Samsung converts overseas revenue into won, exposing it to exchange-rate fluctuations.

Nomura analysts said Samsung's operating profit could have been higher if not for the won's sharp appreciation against the dollar.

Nomura estimates that for every 10% appreciation in the won, Korean chipmakers' profits fall 12%.

FactSet data show the won has appreciated about 12% against the dollar over the past three months.

Samsung has previously said it expects the memory chip shortage to intensify further in 2027 and persist into 2028.

The KB Securities analyst team led by Jeff Kim said Samsung's rapid shift to producing AI-specific high-end high-bandwidth memory HBM will squeeze capacity supply for general-purpose memory chips.

Analysts expect revenue from Samsung's most advanced HBM4 products to rise to about 80% next year from 40% this year.

Alongside the profit surge, investors are turning their attention to Samsung's shareholder return policy.

Samsung has approved a third-quarter dividend of 30 trillion won and 15 trillion won in share buybacks for employee incentives, with more details on shareholder returns to be announced later.

Samsung estimates full-year 2026 shareholder returns at 90 trillion to 110 trillion won.

Samsung will release its full quarterly earnings later this month.