The world’s largest PC maker said fourth-quarter revenue rose 27% to $21.6 billion for the period ended March, beating analysts’ expectations of $18.7 billion. Profit attributable to shareholders climbed 479% to $521 million, above forecasts of $271 million.

Its shares jumped 15% on Friday, making it the biggest gainer on Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index.

Lenovo’s biggest business unit, which covers PCs, tablets and smartphones, recorded a 24% increase in revenue. The company said it was the division’s strongest quarterly growth in five years.

The results came as PC makers are currently dealing with high memory prices and supply shortages. Lenovo had earlier warned that the shortage could affect shipments across the industry. The company has also raised prices on some PCs to manage higher component costs.

“Supply (of memory chips) is in heavy shortage, and the cost is growing faster,” Lenovo Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing told Reuters on Friday.

He added that Lenovo’s wider supplier network, including Chinese memory chip producers, helped reduce pressure on the business.

Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies recently identified Lenovo as one of its major customers in a prospectus filing. The chipmaker also reported more than 700% growth in first-quarter revenue as memory prices surged.

According to forecasts, memory chip prices doubled in the first quarter and could rise by as much as 63% this quarter. Demand from data centres has tightened supply for laptops, smartphones and cars.

Lenovo said its PC shipment growth outpaced the market by nearly six percentage points during the quarter. Research firm Counterpoint Research said global PC shipments rose 3.2% in the first quarter to 63.3 million units, while Lenovo’s shipments increased 9% to 16.5 million units. That gave the company a 26% share of the global market.

The company is also expanding its server business. Lenovo said its infrastructure solutions group, which includes its server operations, posted 37% revenue growth in the quarter, the fastest among all its business units.

It added that its server order pipeline had reached $21 billion as demand for data centre equipment continued to grow.

The South Korean tech giant’s projected earnings are set to beat market expectations by over ₩2 trillion, with analysts attributing the surprise to high prices of DRAM and NAND chips, both essential for servers and consumer devices. 

According to data from TrendForce, DRAM prices climbed 171.8% year-on-year, driven by a drawdown in chip inventories and increased demand from data centres and AI infrastructure.

Analysts say the global rush to build data centres for artificial intelligence has created a bottleneck in the supply of traditional memory chips. With manufacturers focusing investment on high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI workloads, the production of commodity memory has fallen behind, giving Samsung an advantage in pricing and supply.

“The third-quarter earnings surprise came from the chip business,” said Ryu Young-ho, senior analyst at NH Investment & Securities. “Strong demand for conventional memory to support general-purpose servers, combined with robust HBM demand for AI servers, have together fuelled overall memory demand.”

Samsung’s total revenue is expected to rise 8.7% year-on-year to a record ₩86 trillion, aided by the weaker South Korean currency and improved utilisation across its manufacturing plants. 

Analysts also noted smaller losses in its foundry unit, which produces logic chips, as better capacity use helped offset fixed costs.

Although Samsung is the world’s largest memory chipmaker, it is facing competition in advanced AI chips. Earlier this year, rival SK Hynix overtook Samsung in DRAM market share and has led shipments of next-generation HBM3E chips to Nvidia. 

Samsung, however, has begun supplying its own 12-layer HBM3E chips to Nvidia, albeit in limited quantities, and is betting heavily on HBM4 technology to regain its lead.

In a recent report, Morgan Stanley said Samsung “is on track with next-generation HBM4 development, working closely with major U.S. customers,” adding that commercial shipments are expected to begin in 2026.

Meanwhile, Samsung is expanding its internal incentive programmes. A company memo dated 14 October revealed plans to introduce a performance-linked stock compensation plan for all South Korean employees over the next three years, an extension of benefits previously reserved for senior executives.

Despite its strong showing, the company faces external risks. Analysts warn of potential U.S. tariffs on consumer electronics, China’s export restrictions on rare earth materials critical for chip production, and the broader U.S.–China trade tensions, all of which could disrupt supply chains and demand.

“Samsung is a big beneficiary of growing demand for commodity chips,” said Sohn In-joon, an analyst at Heungkuk Securities, who credited the profit surge to unexpectedly strong memory prices and disciplined inventory management across the sector.

With tech giants such as Tesla, OpenAI, and Microsoft expanding their AI infrastructure, analysts expect the current supply shortage in memory chips to continue well into 2026.