Samsung Electronics on Tuesday reduced the decline of 0.2 percent in the operating gains of the first quarter, increasing the demand for solid memory chip and strong smartphones, partially operated by customers concerned about American tariffs.
Analysts stated that the sale of traditional memory chips used in consumer devices such as smartphones and AI chips was better than expected, some customers said with stocking the chips ahead of the potential American tariffs on a semiconductor.
The world’s largest memory chipmaker estimated the operational advantage of KRW 6.6 trillion ($ 4.49 billion or about Rs 38,608 crore) for a January-March period, above the KRW 5.1 trillion (about Rs 29,706 crore) LSEG SmartStest.
A year ago, KRW will be compared with 6.61 trillions (about Rs 38,492 crore) in the same period and in the previous quarter KRW 6.49 trillion (about Rs 37,793 crore).
Greg Ro, head of research of Hyundai Motor Securities, said, “Prices of normal memory are a dip, but the strong demand of customers looking to secure the inventory beyond the potential American tariff helped promote Samsung’s memory chip shipment, supporting the overall performance.”
With a 1.6 percent increase in benchmark Kospi, Samsung shares increased by 2.6 percent in the morning trade after their initial earnings.
Samsung reshuffled its top rank after the sudden death of co-CEO Han Jong-Hey last month, expecting detailed results on 30 April.
The second quarter is seen to be weak
Last week, US President Donald Trump announced a mutual tariff on business partners including China. While semi -circulars were exempted from mutual tariffs, Trump on Thursday reiterated the plan to levy tariffs on the chips very soon.
ROH stated that Samsung’s AI features in the Galaxy S25 smartphone model helped promote strong sales, the possibility of further premative smartphone shipments by North American customers to tariffs ahead of tariffs, which contributed to the results of the first quarter.
In January, Samsung Electronics unveiled its latest Galaxy S25 smartphone, expecting their advanced AI facilities to reinforce the sales and close Apple and Chinese rivals.
As a result of stocking buyers in the first quarter, analysts stated that shipment is likely to fall in the second quarter.
Kim Sun-Woo, a senior analyst at meritz securities, said Samsung’s second quarter operating advantage may also be stable due to delay in securing new customers for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips.
Analysts estimated that Samsung’s Chip Division Profit had reduced KRW 800 billion (about Rs 4,658 crore) in the first quarter a year ago in the first quarter, as there is a possibility of profit from the memory chip business.
Foundry business involves making chips based on contracts for customers such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and AMD.
In January, Samsung warned of dull sale of its AI chips in the first quarter due to US export sanctions in China, Samsung’s top market. Samsung President, JY Lee, was among the officials, who met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing at the end of March.
At a shareholder meeting in March, Samsung officials apologized for the company’s poor share price, which was a faster -growing AI chip market stems from the late reaction of the market. He hoped that the chip earnings in the second half on the demand of smartphones and data centers would be cured, and as its purpose is to start the supply of its better HBM3E 12-high chips to Nvidia in the middle of this year.
SK Hinix of South Korea, the world’s second largest memory chipmaker, said that some customers have brought further orders in preparation for the new American tariff last month, but were careful with counting on a continuous demand recovery.
In the third quarter revenue forecast over the estimates of Micron Technology Wall Street in March, the AI model indicates strong demand for HBM chips used in the model.
© Thomson Reuters 2025
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