Samsung's profit surge cannot hide hidden concerns; stock price plunge drags KOSPI index down 6%.

Shenchao TechFlow news, July 7: Samsung Electronics announced its preliminary second-quarter earnings this morning, with operating profit surging 19 times year-on-year, surpassing the total profit of the past three years. Specifically, Samsung forecasted second-quarter operating profit of 89.4 trillion won (up 1810.2% year-on-year), while the market expected 87.3 trillion won. However, the company's stock price fell sharply as the results failed to ease market concerns about the sustainability of the AI-driven chip boom.

Samsung's stock price once plunged over 8% in early trading, and competitor SK Hynix's stock price also fell 7.3%, dragging South Korea's KOSPI index down 6%. Analysts attributed Samsung's weak stock price to overly high market expectations in some areas — after accounting for employee bonus provisions, the profit driven by record memory chip prices could have exceeded 90 trillion won. In addition, the market also worries that the construction of AI data centers may slow down.

Albert Yong, managing partner of Petra Capital Management, said: "Samsung's strong performance has been widely expected by the market and has been largely priced into the stock price rise before the earnings announcement. Investors are still concerned about the sustainability of the AI boom and the risk that major U.S. tech companies may slow down their AI infrastructure spending." (Jinshi)