$SSNLF 005930 KS Samsung's chip division made ₩106.5T of operating profit in 3Q26. That's more than all of $SKHY earned in the same quarter (₩83.3T), and it's 99% of Samsung's group profit. 3Q26 final (K-IFRS): Revenue ₩195.3T, +14% QoQ, +127% YoY (prelim ₩195.0T) Operating profit ₩107.4T, +20% QoQ, margin 55.0% (2Q 52.2%) DS (chips) ₩106.5T on ₩147.1T of sales, a 72% margin (2Q 70%) Memory sales ₩140.7T, +16% QoQ Phones, TVs and appliances -₩0.8T, same as 2Q Net profit ₩75.1T, EPS ₩11,462 Net cash ₩197.6T The number that moved most is capex. Samsung spent ₩26.9T on property and equipment in the quarter, almost double 2Q's ₩14.1T and 2.5 times a year ago. Revenue growth slowed from 28% to 14% QoQ while spending stepped up. On 2027, the company expects AI demand to tighten memory supply further than this year, and says it'll build its sales base on long-term contracts. HBM4 sales "significantly scaled up" in 3Q, with prices up across all applications. Foundry's first Taylor fab starts operations, and Samsung says its 2nm HPC wins now include major hyperscalers. Shareholders get ₩30T in 3Q dividends, ₩4,601 a share. Of the ₩90–110T planned for 2026, ₩35T is done or committed. The other ₩55–75T will include a large buyback and cancellation, with the plan set at the board meeting in late January. Below operating profit, the finance line swung to a ₩9.5T loss from a ₩4.7T gain in 2Q. The materials don't say why. For the call (10am Seoul): C1 What drove the ₩9.5T finance loss C2 How much of 2027 HBM4 is under long-term contract, and on what pricing terms C3 Where the ₩26.9T of capex went, and what 2027 capex looks like C4 Whether memory costs keep phones and TVs in the red into 4Q

Samsung (005930.KS) challenges $TSM production with Panel-Level-Packaging Samsung plans to bring its 415×510mm FOPLP platform into mass production around 2028, sticking with a significantly larger panel format than TSMC’s 310×310mm standard The larger Samsung panel offers 2.2× the usable area of a 310×310mm panel, potentially providing meaningful unit-cost advantages. Samsung also already has high-volume PLP manufacturing experience from mobile and wearable chips, giving it existing infrastructure and expertise in warpage control The challenge is moving the technology into AI server packaging, where integrating logic dies and HBM is considerably more difficult. TSMC also has an established advantage because its 310×310mm format has already attracted a large equipment, materials and OSAT ecosystem Samsung is also targeting glass-substrate mass production in 2029–2030 as package sizes increase and conventional ABF substrates face growing technical and supply constraints Perhaps most interestingly, Samsung is aggressively using AI in packaging R&D. Physics-Informed Neural Networks are being applied to signal integrity, power integrity and thermal simulations, reportedly reducing some engineering workflows from one year to a single day

$SSNLF $TSM $AMKR $SKHY 005930 KS 3711 TT Samsung chairman Lee Jae-yong spent Sunday at Samsung's advanced packaging lab in Yokohama. The lab's whole five-year budget is ¥40bn, about $254m, and Tokyo and Yokohama are covering ¥22.5bn of it. ASE spent $991m on packaging equipment in the third quarter alone. That gap tells you what Samsung went to Japan for: materials and process know-how. Capacity is being built elsewhere. Samsung's newsroom says Lee toured the Advanced Package Lab on Nov 1, his first visit since it opened on Sep 8. He went through the lab's work on packaging materials and processes and talked about cooperation with Japanese materials, parts and equipment makers. Samsung names wafer bonding and glass substrates as future research areas. The ¥40bn plan runs from 2024 to 2028 and was first announced in 2023, so the money isn't new. The chairman showing up in person is. Japan's draw is the supplier base around Yokohama. Many of the materials and tools that go into an advanced package come from Japanese companies, and Tokyo is willing to pay more than half the bill to keep that development work at home: ¥20bn from the national government and ¥2.5bn from Yokohama, per Kyodo. Samsung is paying for know-how first. Floor space comes later. Taiwan is where the volume runs today. ASE's packaging equipment spend in a single quarter is close to 4x Samsung's five-year lab budget. TSMC is guiding $60-64bn of capex for 2026, and broker estimates put its CoWoS capacity at roughly 106,000-130,000 wafers a month this year. TrendForce reported on Oct 27 that TSMC is weighing a CoWoS price increase of about 20%. When capacity is tight and concentrated in one place, that place sets the price. The US is building, and the dates all land in 2028-2029. Amkor raised its Arizona plan to about $12bn on Sep 8, the same day Samsung opened the Yokohama lab, with phase 1 due to open in 2028. SK hynix broke ground on a roughly $4bn HBM packaging plant in Indiana in August, first cleanroom in October 2028, backed by up to $458m in federal CHIPS money and up to $712m from the state. TSMC aims to have packaging running in Arizona before 2029. For the stocks, we think Taiwan keeps both the volume and the pricing power in CoWoS-class packaging through 2028, which favors $TSM and ASE. $AMKR's Arizona campus is the biggest US capacity bet, and the revenue from it starts in 2028. Samsung's Yokohama lab is a bet on the next packaging generation, and we don't expect it to move HBM packaging share this year or next. What would change our view: Samsung announcing volume packaging capacity in Japan, or a named Japanese supplier signing a joint development deal with the lab. Neither has happened yet. For the next generation of AI chips, which matters more to you: Japan's materials or Taiwan's capacity?

$SKHY $SSNLF 005930 KS Korea exported $56.4B of semiconductors in October, up 259.4% YoY. Second-biggest month on record, behind only September. Total exports: $115.3B, +93.7% YoY Per working day: $5.24B, +76% Chips: 49% of all exports Imports: $72.8B, +36.0% Trade surplus: $42.5B, a second straight month above $40B Jan–Oct exports came to about $930B, the first time the ten-month total has topped $900B. The gap between +93.7% and +76% is the calendar. Last October had fewer working days, so the per-day number is the cleaner read.