NewzSEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported a record operating profit of 89.5 trillion won ($62 billion) for the April-June period, a day after crosstown rival SK Hynix also reported record earnings, as the world’s two largest memory chipmakers continue to ride the global artificial intelligence boom.Despite their soaring profits, the companies’ shares have fallen sharply this week in South Korea’s volatile stock market, where retail investors often drive sharp swings in share prices, as concerns grow over their plans to spend massively on increasing manufacturing capacity and the prospects of intensifying competition from China.Samsung’s second-quarter operating profit was a more than 19-fold increase from a year earlier, and nearly all of it came from its semiconductor business, which benefited from rising chip prices driven by demand for AI servers and increased shipments of advanced high-bandwidth memory chips used to power AI applications. That outweighed an operating loss in its mobile, TV and home appliances division, partly due to higher component costs.Samsung’s quarterly revenue of 171.5 trillion won ($119 billion) was also an all-time high. The company said it expects demand for its memory products to remain strong in the second half of the year, driven by continued expansion of AI infrastructure and broader adoption of agentic AI.
Demand for server chips is expected to accelerate further, keeping the market undersupplied, it said in a statement.Samsung’s report came a day after SK Hynix also reported a record second-quarter revenue of 60.5 trillion won ($42 billion). However, SK Hynx’s profit was still below the loftier market expectations and the company’s shares declined by more than 9% on Wednesday. Samsung’s share prices have also declined this week.Kim Jaejune, an executive of Samsung’s memory chip division, said the company expects the gap between chip supply and demand to widen further in 2027.
He said Samsung plans to begin construction of its second semiconductor fab in Taylor, Texas, before the end of this year, with the goal of starting production by 2030.Kim said Samsung has secured long-term chip supply contracts with what he called the “five major global data center clients” — a possible reference to Amazon Web Services, Google, Meta, Oracle and Microsoft –- and is in talks with … Indonesia’s 8% ride-hailing commission cap took effect on July 1, leaving GoTo’s second-quarter results unaffected by the policy change. (File pic)JAKARTA: GoTo Group reported its second consecutive quarter of net income, boosting the Indonesian ride-hailing and food delivery company’s efforts to navigate a challenging consumer market and a looming cut to ride-hailing commissions.
Net income was 350 billion rupiah (US$19.4 million) for the three months through June, compared with a loss of 297 billion rupiah a year earlier, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Net revenue, which excludes incentives to driver and merchant partners and promotions to users, climbed 31% to 5.7 trillion rupiah.CEO Hans Patuwo is trying to revive the company by betting on fintech services - including payments and lending - to leverage the company’s user base and sustain the profitability turnaround. Meanwhile GoTo has slashed jobs and sold units to cope with tough ride and delivery competition from rivals such as Southeast Asia market leader Grab Holdings.Shares of GoTo have plunged 85% since its 2022 initial public offering.
They have been stuck at 50 rupiah apiece for weeks, which is the lowest allowed for regular trading under Jakarta exchange regulations.“We do not believe that this reflects the fundamental value of the company,” Patuwo told Bloomberg TV in an interview, adding that the company is planning to buy back up to 3.5 trillion rupiah of stock and cancel about 2.7% worth of treasury shares. “We want to make sure that macro conditions are right so that when we do deploy this money, it will have the desired impact.”GoTo reiterated its forecast of 3.2 trillion to 3.4 trillion rupiah in full-year adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, lowering its outlook for on-demand services while raising expectations for its financial services arm.Indonesia’s cap on ride-hailing commissions at 8% - down from roughly 20% previously - only took effect July 1, meaning its impact didn’t directly affect GoTo’s second-quarter results. Still, GoTo trimming its on-demand forecast signals it expects the regulation to weigh on margins in the second half.Meanwhile, adjusted Ebitda at the fintech segment more than quintupled in the latest quarter, overtaking its ride-hailing business on that metric for the first time.
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