Svmuu News: Samsung Electronics announced its preliminary second-quarter earnings early this morning on the South Korean stock market, with operating profit surging 19-fold year-over-year—exceeding the total profits of the past three years combined. Specifically, Samsung reported a second-quarter operating profit of 89.4 trillion won (up 1,810.2% year-over-year), exceeding market expectations of 87.3 trillion won. However, the company’s stock price plummeted as the results failed to alleviate market concerns about the sustainability of the AI-driven chip boom.
Samsung’s stock price plummeted by more than 8% at one point during early trading, while rival SK Hynix’s stock also fell 7.3%, dragging down South Korea’s KOSPI index by 6%. Analysts attributed Samsung’s stock weakness partly to overly optimistic market expectations—after accounting for provisions for employee bonuses, profits driven by record-high memory chip prices could have exceeded 90 trillion won; furthermore, the market is concerned that the construction of AI data centers may slow down.
Albert Yong, managing partner at Petra Capital Management, said, “Samsung’s strong results had long been widely anticipated by the market and were largely priced in during the pre-earnings rally. Investors remain concerned about the sustainability of the AI boom, as well as the risk that AI infrastructure spending by major U.S. tech companies may slow.” (Jin Shi)