SEOUL — Samsung Electronics reached a market valuation of $1 trillion on Tuesday, joining Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. as the second Asian firm to hit this threshold in corporate history. Samsung Electronics said its shares jumped 15 percent in Seoul trading to push its total market capitalization to approximately 1,500 trillion won, which equates to $1.03 trillion based on current exchange rates reported by financial institutions.
The first-quarter performance report showed operating profit at Samsung Electronics multiplied over eightfold compared to the same period in the previous year, totaling 57.2 trillion won. Revenue at Samsung Electronics reached a record high of 133.9 trillion won during the three-month financial period, the company said in a statement, reflecting sustained demand across its core manufacturing divisions without disclosing specific unit sales figures.
Mass production of HBM4 chips by Samsung Electronics established the firm as a prominent leader in the artificial intelligence memory market for hardware built by Nvidia, the company said in its briefing. These advanced components are specifically engineered for heavy workloads in enterprise data centers, and Samsung Electronics noted that the production milestone boosted investor confidence across domestic and international markets.
South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index crossed the 7,000 threshold for the first time in history following the market rally led by Samsung Electronics, exchange data show. Fellow domestic chipmaker SK Hynix saw its shares climb by more than 10 percent during the same trading session, indicating a broad-based recovery across the technology sector in the region, according to local filings.
Discussions involving 3 technology giants—Apple, Samsung Electronics, and Intel—regarding potential chip production facilities in the United States could reduce reliance on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., corporate officials said in disclosures. Samsung Electronics reported these talks alongside demand for its chip technologies, though executives provided no specific timeline for the potential manufacturing agreements.
