Proving to be an unrivalled winner in the exceptional semiconductor boom, Samsung Electronics achieved a new milestone in the second quarter with its operating profit at a record high of 14 trillion won ($12 billion), up 41 percent from the previous three-month period and 72 percent from a year-ago.

According to its earnings guidance for the second quarter ended March, the world’s largest memory chip and smartphone maker reported that its revenue surged 19 percent on quarter and 18 percent on year to 60 trillion won, dethroning Intel Corp. as the world’s largest semiconductor maker by revenue for the first time.

Its performance beat market consensus of a historic-high profit of slightly above 13 trillion won.

Shares of Samsung Electronics started Friday lower at 0.4% at 2,393,000 won, unaffected by the preliminary earnings figures released before the market opening.

For the first six months, operating profit reached 23.9 trillion won and sales 110.55 trillion won.

Its stunning performance was well expected as the leading chipmaker benefited most from the spike in chip prices from sizzling demand amid increasing automation and digitalization on top of tight supply.

The mainstay 4-gigabit DDR4 dynamic random access memory (DRAM) prices hover at $3.5 apiece compared with $1.94 in late December. The price for mainstay 128Gb nonvolatile flash memory chips also has jumped to $5.52 from $4.22.

Competition to upgrade data centers and demand for solid-state drives as well as widening application of memory chips to power from phones to automotives has fuelled earnings for the chipmaker with cost-cutting technology and biggest capacity.

Already the world’s predominant volatile and nonvolatile memory maker, Samsung Electronics pledged 37 trillion won spending plan by 2021 for generational shift and bigger capacity in high-performance and storage chips upon opening the world’s largest chip fab at Pyeongtaek that began mass-producing 64-layer vertical NAND flash chips.

Face-saving Galaxy S8 series released in April after the ill-fated Galaxy Note7 also would have helped the second-quarter performance.

The company that makes chips, phones, as well as PCs and home appliances will be releasing performance by sector when it discloses final earnings for the second quarter.

By Song Sung-hoon

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