Samsung second-quarter profit more than halves, missing expectations, weighed by slump in chip business

Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported a second-quarter operating profit of 4.7 trillion Korean won that missed expectations, weighed by U.S. export restrictions on advanced AI chips to China.

While Samsung’s second-quarter operating profit beat its own forecast of around 4.6 trillion won, it was a steep drop from the 10.44 trillion won recorded in the same period last year.

The South Korean technology giant posted a quarterly revenue of 74.6 trillion won, up slightly from 74.07 trillion won a year earlier and beating its forecast of 74 trillion won. 

Here are Samsung’s second-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:

• Revenue: 74.6 trillion won ($53.5 billion) vs. 74.43 trillion won 
• Operating profit: 4.7 trillion won vs. 5.33 trillion won

Notably, its Device Solutions division, which encompasses its memory chip, semiconductor design and foundry business units, recorded a 93.8% drop in operating profit year over year.

Samsung Electronics’ chip business posted an operating profit of 400 billion won in the second quarter, plunging from 6.45 trillion won in the same period last year. Chip revenue fell to 27.9 trillion won, from 28.56 trillion won last year. 

“Inventory value adjustments in memory and one-off costs related to the impacts of export restrictions related to China in non-memory had an adverse effect on profit,” the company said in a statement.

Samsung’s foundry business is set to receive a boost in the following quarters from a $16.5 billion contract to supply chips to a major company disclosed on Monday. 

While Samsung has yet to name the counterparty, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that it is his American electric vehicle maker, and that the deal could grow larger than what’s been announced. 

Meanwhile, in the second half of the year, Samsung said it plans to proactively meet the growing demand for high-value-added and AI-driven products and continue to strengthen competitiveness in advanced semiconductors.

Samsung’s mobile experience and networks businesses, tasked with developing and selling smartphones, tablets, wearables and other devices, reported an uptick in sales and profit.

The unit posted an operating profit of 3.1 trillion won for the second quarter, compared to 2.23 trillion won during the same period last year. 

Consolidated revenue for the unit reached 29.2 trillion won, up from 27.38 trillion won last year. 

Samsung said that both revenue and operating profit grew year over year through robust sales of its Galaxy S25 series and Galaxy A series smartphones, as well as its Galaxy tablets.

“In H2 2025, the [mobile experience business] plans to continue a flagship-first approach for smartphone sales focusing on foldables and the Galaxy S25 series — while emphasizing the AI functionality of the Galaxy A series — to increase market share,” Samsung added.