Goldman Sachs: Samsung Electronics: Memory Drives Profits to New Highs, Buyback Plan Deferred Until Next Year

Which businesses supported third-quarter profit?

Samsung Electronics reported third-quarter 2026 revenue of 195.3 trillion won and operating profit of 107.4 trillion won, broadly in line with its preliminary guidance of 195 trillion and 107.4 trillion won, respectively.
NAND bit shipments and average selling prices were slightly below Goldman Sachs’ expectations, weighing on profit in the business. An improved mobile product mix resulted in a smaller loss than the bank had originally expected, offsetting some of the impact. Goldman Sachs estimates that the mobile business still posted a loss of 370 billion won for the quarter.
Goldman Sachs estimates that the system LSI and foundry businesses lost 1.98 trillion won in the third quarter; it expects the mobile business’s loss to widen to 1.26 trillion won in the fourth quarter.

Samsung expects fourth-quarter DRAM bit shipments to grow by a mid-to-high teens percentage sequentially and NAND shipments by a mid-teens percentage. The company sees strong memory demand from new CPU and GPU platforms and the expansion of agentic AI services.
Goldman Sachs expects the share of high-value products such as HBM, server DRAM and enterprise solid-state drives to continue rising. It forecasts fourth-quarter operating profit of 127 trillion won, above its previous forecast of 119 trillion and the third-quarter figure of 107.4 trillion won.
Samsung believes cleanroom space, equipment lead times, construction costs and the capacity occupied by HBM constrain memory supply growth. Even with planned increases in capital spending in 2027, it would be difficult to raise bit output substantially in 2028; it therefore expects tight supply and demand to persist through 2028.
Tight supply and demand do not necessarily mean prices will keep rising: Goldman Sachs’ model forecasts that, after DRAM and NAND average selling prices rise 46% and 34% year on year respectively in 2027, they will fall 4% and 11% respectively in 2028.

Samsung said third-quarter HBM4 revenue met its target of growing more than 3-fold sequentially and accounted for 60% of its HBM sales. On that basis, Goldman Sachs estimates Samsung’s HBM revenue grew about 70% sequentially to nearly 6 billion dollars, exceeding its full-year 2025 level.
As conventional DRAM revenue also grew strongly, Goldman Sachs estimates that HBM still accounts for less than 10% of Samsung’s DRAM revenue. The bank expects Samsung’s share to continue rising and HBM average selling prices to increase 160% year on year in 2027, lifting HBM’s share of DRAM revenue to 20%.

Samsung expects its remaining 2026 shareholder return funds to amount to 55 trillion to 75 trillion won, including large-scale share buybacks and cancellations and cash dividends. The detailed execution plan and the next shareholder return policy are expected to be finalized by the board in January 2027.
Goldman Sachs sees a buyback as more likely a matter of timing and expects the company to announce total year-end shareholder returns of 70 trillion won at its earnings presentation in January 2027, comprising about 40 trillion in cash dividends and 30 trillion in buybacks and cancellations. The report said the absence of an immediate buyback announcement could disappoint investors: ordinary shares fell 4% that day, while the Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 1% over the same period.
Goldman Sachs maintained buy ratings on the ordinary and preferred shares, with 12-month price targets of 500 thousand and 380 thousand won respectively. Based on higher assumptions for conventional memory shipments and HBM, the bank revised its 2026–2028 earnings-per-share forecasts by approximately -1% to +4%.