The report revealed that the company could reach a final decision as early as the end of April. If approved, Samsung would begin winding down sales of products including televisions, refrigerators, washing machines and air conditioners in the Chinese market.

While retail sales may end, Samsung is expected to keep its factories in China. Those sites would instead support overseas demand by producing goods for export markets.

The planned exit is influenced by the number of Chinese manufacturers now operating in the local market with lower prices and stronger product quality. Brands such as Haier, Hisense and TCL have also expanded beyond China, increasing competition abroad.

Samsung once held a stronger position in China’s consumer electronics market, but local competitors have steadily reduced its share in recent years.

In a statement, Samsung said it regularly reviews its global business structure in response to changes in operating conditions. The company added that nothing has been decided regarding speculation over possible restructuring in China.

If the withdrawal goes ahead, Samsung would lose direct access to one of the world’s largest appliance markets. However, it would still maintain a manufacturing base in China while focusing sales on regions where its premium products are more competitive.

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The company is expected to report a fourth-quarter operating profit of about 16.9 trillion won for the October–December period, according to analyst estimates compiled by LSEG. 

That figure would represent a jump of roughly 160% from a year earlier and place Samsung within touching distance of its 2018 peak, when the memory market last experienced a major price cycle.

What has changed is not just demand, but the structure of it. With manufacturers focusing capacity towards advanced chips for data centres, output of conventional memory has tightened. Prices have responded with unusual force. 

TrendForce data shows DDR5 DRAM prices climbed 314% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, while contract prices for standard DRAM are forecast to rise another 55% to 60% in the first quarter of this year.

That dynamic plays directly into Samsung’s hands. The company is heavily exposed to conventional DRAM, a segment that many rivals had begun to treat as mature. 

“As conventional DRAM prices continue to surge, Samsung – whose production capacity is largely concentrated in this segment – stands to gain relatively more from the current price upcycle,” TrendForce analyst Avril Wu said.

This quarter goes beyond a one-off rebound. Just over a year ago, Samsung’s leadership was apologising publicly for weak performance as it fell behind SK Hynix in supplying high-bandwidth memory to Nvidia. 

Today, the tone is different. On Friday, executive chairman Jun Young-hyun told investors that customers had described Samsung’s next-generation HBM4 chips by saying, “Samsung is back.”

The competitive backdrop explains why that is important. SK Hynix completed what it described as world-first HBM4 development in September 2025, doubling bandwidth and cutting power use by 40%. 

By the end of last year, it had already sold out its entire 2026 supply to Nvidia. Micron, meanwhile, has told investors that tight memory conditions could last beyond 2026, with chief executive Sanjay Mehrotra warning that the company expects to meet only half to two-thirds of demand from several major customers.

At CES 2026, chipmaker Nvidia unveiled its Vera Rubin platform, confirming that the next generation of its systems will rely on HBM4 memory. Nvidia said the Vera Rubin architecture is in full production and on track for launch later this year, underlining how critical reliable HBM supply has become.

Samsung’s expected profit surge shows this bigger change. Some analysts have already lifted their fourth-quarter forecasts above 20 trillion won, betting that price momentum in traditional memory has been underestimated. 

Looking further ahead, market forecasts reveal Samsung’s operating profit could exceed 100 trillion won this year, more than double last year’s level, if pricing remains firm.

Investors have largely embraced the turnaround. Samsung shares rose 125% last year, their strongest annual gain in 26 years, although they dipped 2.1% in early Tuesday trading as the wider market paused after a rally.

Risks have not disappeared. Lee Min-hee of BNK Investment & Securities cautioned that higher chip prices could cool demand for consumer devices and flagged “risks of a demand slowdown” as data centres rely more on debt to fund expansion. 

Samsung itself has acknowledged the limitations on its mobile business, where rising component costs are squeezing margins. “As this situation is unprecedented, no company is immune to its impact,” co-chief executive TM Roh said, adding that the fallout looks “inevitable”.

Even so, a memory market once dismissed as cyclical has become essential to the next phase of global computing. 

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The company wants to scale first, refine later, and lock users into an AI-driven system before competitors can meet up.

By the end of last year, around 400 million Samsung devices already carried Gemini-powered features. That figure will double as the company extends AI beyond smartphones to tablets, televisions and home appliances. 

Beyond a feature upgrade, Samsung is enhancing how its products work and how users interact with them.

“We will apply AI to all products, all functions, and all services as quickly as possible,” T M Roh said in his first interview since becoming co-CEO.

As the largest supporter of Google’s Android platform, Samsung is also giving Google a massive consumer advantage at a time when AI models are fighting for everyday relevance. 

Every Samsung Galaxy phone shipped with Gemini baked in is another front opened in Google’s move against OpenAI and others.

Global Smartphone Shipments to Fall 2.1% in 2026 as High Memory Prices Hit Low-End Devices Hard

The strategy is already visible in Samsung’s flagship devices. The Galaxy S25 series, launched in early 2025, arrived with solid Gemini integration, including side-button access that replaces Bixby in some tasks. 

Samsung wants AI to feel native, not optional. The aim is to make Gemini a default layer across the Galaxy ecosystem, not just a chatbot buried in an app.

This comes as competition in AI is growing. Google’s Gemini 3, released in November 2025, set new performance records, becoming the first model to cross the 1500 Elo threshold on reasoning benchmarks. 

It also led in maths, coding, multimodal tasks and long-context understanding. The response was quick. OpenAI launched GPT-5.2 weeks later, following reports that Sam Altman had declared an internal “code red” to enhance development.

Samsung believes consumer adoption is meeting up with the technology. Roh said internal surveys show awareness of its Galaxy AI brand has jumped from about 30% to 80% in just one year.

“Even though the AI technology might seem a bit doubtful right now, within six months to a year, these technologies will become more widespread,” he said.

On phones, search is the most used AI feature. But usage is spreading to image editing, productivity tools, translation and summaries. These are small actions, repeated daily, and that is where Samsung thinks loyalty will be built.

Still, the aggressive AI rollout is happening against a tougher market backdrop. A global shortage of memory chips is lifting prices for key components, helping Samsung’s semiconductor unit but squeezing margins in its smartphone business.

“As this situation is unprecedented, no company is immune to its impact,” Roh said.

He acknowledged that price increases may be unavoidable, calling some impact “inevitable”, even as Samsung works with partners to soften the blow over the longer term. 

Counterpoint Research revised its 2026 smartphone shipment forecast in December, predicting a 2.1% decline as higher DRAM prices increase device costs. Analysts estimate memory price hikes have added between 10% and 25% to the bill of materials across devices.

Samsung is also managing expectations around foldable phones, a category it pioneered in 2019. Growth has been slower than hoped, held back by engineering challenges and a lack of apps designed for foldable screens. 

Roh believes the format will break through within two to three years, noting that repeat purchase rates among foldable users are “very high”.

For now, Samsung is firmly in control. It held about 64% of the global foldable smartphone market in the third quarter of 2025, far ahead of Huawei and Motorola.

Apple is expected to launch its first foldable iPhone in 2026, increasing the stakes in a segment Samsung once had to itself.

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