Samsung Hits $1 Trillion Valuation — Stock Explodes As AI Chip Race Intensifies
Samsung Electronics on Wednesday crossed a market capitalisation of $1 trillion (£793 billion), making the South Korean chip giant only the second firm in Asia to reach the milestone after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
The stock jumped more than 15 per cent in Seoul trading, putting it on course for the biggest one-day advance in Samsung’s history, according to FactSet data. CNBC noted Samsung had first briefly touched the $1 trillion mark on 26 February before pulling back.
The milestone arrives alongside a separate development that could reshape Samsung’s future revenue mix. Apple is said to be in exploratory discussions with Samsung over potentially manufacturing processors for Apple devices in the United States, according to Bloomberg.
Intel has also been named in the discussions. The talks would give Apple a secondary production option beyond longtime chip supplier TSMC.
Samsung’s rally pushed the broader Kospi benchmark past the 7,000 level, a threshold it had never previously breached. SK Hynix, Samsung’s fellow memory chip maker, climbed more than 10 per cent. Together, the two firms account for over 43 per cent of the index’s total weighting.
Q1 Profit Alone Eclipsed Samsung’s Entire 2025 Earnings
First-quarter operating profit at Samsung came in at 57.2 trillion won ($39.2 billion/£31.1 billion), a more-than-eightfold rise from a year earlier. Revenue reached a record 133.9 trillion won ($91.8 billion/£72.9 billion). To put that in context, a single quarter’s profit surpassed the 43.6 trillion won ($29.9 billion/£23.7 billion) Samsung earned across all of 2025.
High-bandwidth memory chips, the specialised components powering AI data centres, sit at the centre of this earnings surge. Samsung announced in February that it had started mass-producing HBM4, the newest and sixth generation of the technology. Those chips are expected to power Nvidia’s forthcoming Vera Rubin AI architecture.
SK Hynix still commands an estimated 55 per cent of the HBM market to Samsung’s roughly 25 per cent. Positive customer feedback on Samsung’s latest HBM4 products has helped close the gap, though, and margins on standard DRAM have lately surpassed those on HBM, easing competitive pressure.
US Brokerage Deal Fuels Foreign Buying Spree
A new partnership linking Samsung Securities with Interactive Brokers has given American investors a direct route into South Korean stocks, and foreign capital is flooding in. Global investors poured a near-record 2.9 trillion won ($2 billion/£1.6 billion) into Kospi shares on Monday alone, and buying resumed on Wednesday following a public holiday.
Jupiter Asset Management’s Sam Konrad said supply in the memory sector is falling short of demand. Samsung itself has signalled 2027 will bring even tighter conditions than 2026, Konrad added, which should keep NAND and DRAM prices on an upward trajectory.
South Korea’s benchmark has now gained 76 per cent in 2026, following an equally strong 76 per cent advance in 2025 – its best annual showing since 1999. Mirae Asset Securities analyst Seo Sang-young told Reuters the Kospi could reach 10,000 by year-end if AI chip demand holds, though a downturn tied to inflation or the Iran conflict could pull it as low as 4,500.
Workers Threaten Strike as Mobile Unit Struggles
The chip division’s record results stand in sharp contrast to weaker performance in Samsung’s mobile and display units, where rising materials and component costs have eaten into margins. Workers are now demanding a bigger cut of the AI windfall and have threatened a general strike lasting 18 days, set to begin later in May.
Analysts remain broadly bullish regardless. Samsung trades at roughly six times one-year forward earnings, well below the 14.4 times it fetched in October. Sell-side estimates compiled by Bloomberg project the stock will gain an additional 22 per cent over the coming 12 months.
Originally published on IBTimes UK
