Five memory makers earn more in a quarter than five US tech giants for the first time
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
The memory shortage is shifting profits from the SI boom toward suppliers of a critical component, rather than only model developers and cloud providers.
According to Nikkei and QUICK FactSet, as relayed by 3DNews, combined quarterly operating profit at Kioxia, Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Micron and Sandisk rose tenfold year on year to roughly 32 trillion yen ($204 billion). The corresponding total at Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Apple was 25 trillion yen, with a market forecast used for Apple. Demand for memory used in SI infrastructure continues to outstrip supply. Memory makers' operating margin approached 70%, compared with about 10% in the first half of 2025, while Samsung said its entire HBM output planned for next year has already sold out.
Sources 1