The AI era has brought huge profits to NVIDIA, but current memory profits could become an even bigger story. According to the latest estimates, Samsung could easily exceed 200 billion dollars in profit this year and become the most profitable company in the world.
It is said that Samsung’s annual profit could be double that of companies such as NVIDIA, Apple and Google. Even more impressive is the claim that this year’s earnings could reach the sum of the company’s profits over the previous 40 years!
In the period from 2025 to 2030, the big three memory manufacturers, Samsung, SK hynix and Micron, could reportedly earn between 2800-4200 billion US$, which sounds almost unbelievable. Two of those three companies come from South Korea, which is why the Asian media is talking about an extremely favorable moment for the Korean industry.
However, the question is whether Korea can peacefully enjoy that position. Japanese media warn that Korea’s strong dominance of the memory market could provoke a reaction from the US, especially if US companies pay increasingly expensive memory while most of the profits flow outside the country.
Memory profits could attract US attention due to the dominance of Samsung and SK hynix
The comparison is made with Japan in the 1980s, when Japanese semiconductor companies were on the rise and had an extremely strong position in the memory market. Their pressure was so great that Intel, which was previously an important player in the memory business, had to leave that market.
Strong American political and commercial pressure on Japan followed, after which the Japanese economy entered a long period of stagnation, while the semiconductor industry there lost its former strength and retained its advantage mainly in certain segments of equipment and materials.
The Japanese warning is therefore aimed precisely at the present moment of South Korea. Samsung and SK hynix are on a huge run, but the US is developing AI to maintain its own technological edge and it is hard to expect them to calmly watch memory profits go to other countries to such a large extent.
The text reminds us that the USA and the European Union previously punished foreign companies for price fixing and monopolistic behavior. Samsung has already had cases related to memory and panels, including accusations of price manipulation.
The difference is that today’s memory industry is much bigger, and the expected profit is measured in the hundreds of billions or even trillions over many years. Samsung, SK hynix and Micron have also recently found themselves under collective civil action over similar allegations. For now, it is only a matter of civil proceedings, without the involvement of American state authorities and without a final court decision, which could be a matter of time when it will happen, although we cannot yet talk about punishments.