Technology manufacturer
Appears in 13 stories · Last updated Nov 9, 2026
Central subject; holding record cash after an AI chip boom
Samsung Electronics held 214.8 trillion won in cash and short-term investments at the end of September 2026, the first South Korean company past 200 trillion won. Net of borrowings it still had 197.6 trillion won, up 30 trillion won in three months, and total assets reached 791.8 trillion won.
Updated 3 days ago
Site confirmed at Gwangju Military Airport while its union fights the plan; upgrading its China memory plant as US tariff pressure builds
South Korea's chip buildout is producing contracts on several fronts. On November 2, Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan said the three mega projects total 1,600 trillion won, about 60% of GDP in the year work starts, and promised faster permits to bring fab start-ups forward by more than two years. Samsung and SK Hynix have signed long-term memory supply deals with customers, and OpenAI's Sam Altman visited Seoul to talk with SK Group about HBM and data centers.
Updated Nov 2
World's largest memory chip maker
South Korea exported $115.3 billion of goods in October, 93.7% more than a year earlier. That is the fastest annual growth in any month since January 1974, according to the trade ministry. Semiconductor shipments did most of the work, reaching $56.4 billion, up 259%. Computer exports rose 497% to $5.85 billion as server demand for AI services expanded.
Updated Nov 1
Reported record third-quarter operating profit of 107.4 trillion won
South Korean companies held 67.1 trillion won in surplus financial assets at the end of June, more than triple the record set three months earlier, as memory chip profits piled up at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. The boom has not slowed. Samsung reported 107.4 trillion won in third-quarter operating profit on October 22, the first time a private company has cleared 100 trillion won in a quarter.
Updated Oct 24
As of September 2026: Developing zHBM, currently shipping HBM4
Samsung has shown a working prototype of zHBM, a memory architecture that stacks high-bandwidth memory directly on top of AI accelerators. The design removes the interposer, the silicon bridge that currently carries data between logic and memory chips placed side by side.
Updated Sep 10
As of August 2026: Main foldable rival
For two years, Google made buyers wait. The standard Pixel phones shipped in August, and the foldable followed weeks later. On August 20, 2026, that ended: the Pixel 11 Pro Fold reached customers the same day as the rest of the Pixel 11 line.
Updated Aug 20
As of June 2026: Chief rival; shipped HBM4E samples three weeks earlier
Modern AI chips can crunch numbers faster than memory can feed them data. On June 18, 2026, SK hynix said it shipped samples of HBM4E, a stacked memory chip built to narrow that gap, to major customers.
Updated Jun 18
As of May 2026: Largest KOSPI-listed company by market cap; ramping HBM4 production to close gap with SK Hynix
South Korea's benchmark KOSPI stock index crossed 6,000 points for the first time on February 25, 2026. It completed its climb from 5,000 to 6,000 in just 34 trading days, the fastest thousand-point advance in the index's history.
Updated May 29
As of May 2026: Launched Galaxy S26 series, pursuing 800 million AI device target
Two years ago, Samsung declared its Galaxy S24 the 'world's first AI phone.' On February 25, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S26 with three competing AI assistants running simultaneously, a privacy display that physically blocks shoulder surfers at the pixel level, and a 100-trillion-operation processor. The company is rebuilding phones around AI as the core organizing principle.
As of May 2026: First to put live systolic and diastolic readings on a smartwatch
Oura's fifth-generation smart ring went on sale Thursday with blood pressure monitoring and on-demand telehealth access, starting at $399. The Ring 5 is 40% smaller than its predecessor and monitors nighttime blood pressure shifts that can warn of cardiovascular strain.
As of May 2026: Committed to fixed profit-sharing for the first time
Samsung Electronics has run for 57 years without ever tying a fixed share of profits to worker pay. That changed Wednesday.
Updated May 27
As of May 2026: Second-place HBM competitor, planning 50% capacity increase
For decades, chip packaging was the unglamorous final step—stacking and connecting silicon dies after the real engineering was done. Now it's the constraint holding back AI.
Updated May 20
As of May 2026: Leading AI home appliance integration with Google partnership
Samsung just put Google's Gemini AI inside a refrigerator. Not alongside it, not as an app—built directly into the hardware.
Updated May 19
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