Samsung Electronics said employees in its semiconductor business will receive first-half 2026 performance bonuses of up to 100% of base salary, with payment scheduled for July 8. The payout matches the level from the previous half, and comes as investors track the profit surge tied to AI-driven memory demand.
HBM demand pushes memory division to the front
The report said the current AI memory supercycle has sharply improved Samsung’s storage chip business. Rising shipments of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, helped lift revenue in the memory segment to a record level. Samsung’s first-quarter 2026 results, published through its global newsroom, showed that memory had become the group’s largest profit driver.
Analysts estimated that Samsung’s memory chip division generated about 14 billion won in operating profit in the first half alone, which the source also described as roughly $91 billion. If that pace continues, full-year operating profit could approach 35 billion won. Samsung is set to release second-quarter earnings guidance on July 7.
Report points to a large bonus pool
Tom’s Hardware, citing internal Samsung information, said the total bonus payout could reach $26.6 billion. Based on the figures in the report, the average semiconductor employee would receive about $339,000, equal to one year of base salary.
The article also compared Samsung with companies in Taiwan. It said MediaTek posted first-quarter 2026 earnings per share of about 1.82, while TSMC has not disclosed a bonus ratio. Industry information cited in the report said TSMC engineers typically receive year-end bonuses worth about three to four months of pay.
Samsung and SK Hynix shares fell after the announcement
On the day the bonus news was released, South Korea’s KOSPI at one point widened its decline to 3%. Samsung shares fell 1.6%, while SK Hynix dropped more than 5%. The market read the move as a sign that part of the good news had already been priced in, prompting profit-taking.
The report added that Samsung and SK Hynix together control about 70% of the global HBM market, giving the two companies a central position in the memory supply chain for NVIDIA GPUs. It also cited earlier signals that Samsung’s HBM yield had moved above 70% in May, while DRAM pricing saw a third consecutive quarterly increase in June.