Samsung Electronics expects to report an operating profit of about 107.4 trillion won for the third quarter of 2026, almost nine times what it earned in the same period a year ago. Sales are forecast at about 195 trillion won.

Samsung Electronics has published its earnings guidance for the third quarter of 2026, forecasting an operating profit of approximately 107.40 trillion Korean won.

The company, which released the estimate in Korea on Thursday, October 8, expects consolidated sales of approximately 195 trillion won for the quarter.

The Guidance in Numbers

  • Consolidated sales: approximately 195 trillion won (range: 194 trillion to 196 trillion)
  • Consolidated operating profit: approximately 107.40 trillion won (range: 107.3 trillion to 107.5 trillion)

Samsung noted that Korean disclosure regulations do not allow earnings estimates to be offered as a range, so the headline figures are the median of the estimate ranges.

How It Compares

Samsung published two sets of earlier figures alongside the forecast.

In the third quarter of 2025, the company reported sales of 86.06 trillion won and an operating profit of 12.17 trillion won. On that basis, the new forecast implies that sales have more than doubled in a year, while operating profit is almost nine times higher.

In the second quarter of 2026, sales were 171.5 trillion won and operating profit was 89.49 trillion won. Against that quarter, the guidance points to sales growth of roughly 14 percent and an increase in operating profit of about 20 percent.

The forecast also implies that operating profit will be equal to about 55 percent of sales, compared with about 14 percent in the same quarter last year.

What the Guidance Does Not Say

The statement is brief. It gives the two headline estimates and the comparison figures, and does not break the results down by business division or give net profit.

The estimates are based on K-IFRS, the Korean version of international accounting standards, and are preliminary. Samsung normally follows its guidance with a full earnings release that sets out the performance of each division.

Why It Matters

Samsung is one of the world’s largest makers of memory chips, smartphones and consumer electronics, and its quarterly guidance is among the first indications each earnings season of how the global technology industry is performing.

On the company’s own comparison, the third-quarter estimate is higher than both the previous quarter and the same quarter a year earlier, for sales and for operating profit.

Image: A Samsung store (file photo, 2016). Photo via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.