Samsung and SK hynix are about to make an absurd amount of money and South Korea’s export data just revealed why. South Korea’s semiconductor exports surged 259.4% year over year to a record $34.1 billion during the first 20 days of September. Semiconductors now account for 47.8% of the country’s total exports, which is the highest percentage ever recorded for this period. These numbers show that the AI boom is no longer based only on future spending forecasts because massive chip orders are already being manufactured, shipped and converted into revenue. Samsung and SK hynix are benefiting from rising shipment volumes and dramatically higher memory prices at the same time. The supply constraint allows Samsung and SK hynix to raise prices across a much larger portion of their memory businesses. Samsung reported that its average selling prices increased by approximately the mid-40% range for DRAM and the high 60% range for NAND during the second quarter. These price increases can produce enormous profit growth because semiconductor manufacturing carries extremely high fixed costs. Once the factories are operating near capacity, every additional dollar generated through higher selling prices can carry a very high incremental margin. Samsung demonstrated this operating leverage during the second quarter when its revenue reached KRW 171.5 trillion and its operating profit climbed to KRW 89.5 trillion. Samsung’s semiconductor division generated KRW 127.5 trillion in revenue and KRW 89.2 trillion in operating profit, which means the semiconductor business produced almost all of the company’s profit. SK hynix offers more concentrated exposure to the AI-memory boom because it remains one of the leading suppliers of HBM for AI accelerators. The company began shipping HBM4 during the second quarter and plans to expand production throughout the second half of the year. SK hynix has also completed long term supply negotiations with more than 10 customers, which gives the company greater revenue visibility and reduces the risk of expanding production without committed buyers. Samsung offers a broader opportunity because it can benefit from rising demand for HBM, conventional DRAM, NAND and enterprise SSDs. Samsung also expects its HBM4 sales to more than triple sequentially during the third quarter, while HBM4 is expected to represent more than 60% of its total HBM revenue during the second half. Samsung and SK hynix do not need semiconductor exports to continue growing by 259% for their profits to keep rising. They only need shipment volumes to remain strong while memory prices stay elevated. If those conditions continue, revenue should keep expanding while operating profit grows even faster because higher selling prices can flow almost directly to the bottom line. Make sure to follow @MilkRoadAI for more insights.