It is embarrassing to admit, but it seems better to say it openly. Checking the record, the date was March 30. That morning, our lead reporter covering Samsung Electronics reported that the company's first-quarter operating profit was likely to top 40 trillion won. It was eight days before Samsung Electronics was due to release preliminary first-quarter results. Market consensus stood at around 37 trillion won, so if the figure was accurate, it was both valuable investment information and a scoop. But operating profit for the fourth quarter of 2025, which had stirred the market three months earlier as a "new era," was 20 trillion won. To double that in one step left me astonished and skeptical at the same time.
The reporter, whom I had asked to dig further, then picked up information that the operating profit forecast was in the high 40 trillion won range. We decided to run the story on the front page, but writing the reported number as it stood was difficult, so we told readers that Samsung Electronics' quarterly operating profit was approaching 40 trillion won for the first time.
After the Seoul Economic Daily report, brokerage forecasts for Samsung Electronics' operating profit pushed past 40 trillion won one after another, and eventually reports appeared projecting that it would clear 50 trillion won as well. I worried that we might have become the epicenter of inflated earnings estimates. Then, on April 7, Samsung Electronics announced first-quarter operating profit of 57.2 trillion won. It was a genuine earnings surprise, and my relief lasted only a moment before my head bowed at my own failure to grasp the true worth of memory chips in the artificial intelligence revolution. It was a time for reflection, but I could still smile, because it came with the realization that a truly enormous opportunity had arrived for South Korea.
With another earnings season approaching, anyone with even a passing interest in the economy, not just Samsung Electronics shareholders, now speaks matter-of-factly about forecasts that the company's third-quarter operating profit will exceed 100 trillion won. Having already reported operating profit approaching 90 trillion won in the second quarter, investors now seem almost indifferent in the face of profit above 100 trillion won.
Yet a single company posting quarterly profit of more than 100 trillion won is more than a rhetorical rewriting of global corporate history. It is an enormous event that confers vast potential on the national economy as well. Moreover, with SK hynix set to follow Samsung Electronics by announcing quarterly profit close to 80 trillion won, there is no question that how to seize and build on the opportunity of this semiconductor boom is the issue South Korea's economy must place above all others right now.
To extend the greatest opening since the founding of the nation, we must first examine who created the current opportunity. It is the basis for judging whose words deserve closer attention in order to respond best to this rare chance amid a volatile global political and economic environment. And what built K-semiconductors into a world leader was not the government or the National Assembly, but unmistakably companies.
There were workers, including engineers, who devoted themselves to relentless research and development and to improving productivity. Behind them stood management and owners whose entrepreneurial spirit spared nothing in bold investment and support, guided by insight into the future. Without founding Chairman Lee Byung-chull's foresight, late Chairman Lee Kun-hee's decisiveness and Chairman Jay Y. Lee's tenacity, today's Samsung Electronics would be hard to imagine. Twelve years ago, when Hynix stood at the crossroads of survival, only one professional manager joined SK Chairman Chey Tae-won in the decision to acquire it, yet Chey worked in concert with Hynix employees to write the "high-bandwidth memory legend."
The observation that the chip industry, by its nature, has smaller ripple effects on the economy than sectors such as autos, and that the benefits of growth are concentrated in specific fields, is partly correct and worth keeping in mind. But the current AI fever and semiconductor megacycle are a global event without precedent. That is borne out by the fact that chip earnings easily helped cover the 26 trillion won in funding for the government's so-called "war supplementary budget" in late March, and that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development recently raised its forecast for South Korea's growth rate to 3.7%, after concerns early this year that it would stay in the 1% range. If the chip boom, already booked through next year, lasts another year or two to three years, the simple tax revenue effect alone, including corporate tax, would add more than 100 trillion won each year.
As it happens, the government has stepped forward to place semiconductors at the head of its three megaprojects and has presented a blueprint for sustained growth. I hope the specific action plans reflect the views of business leaders first and foremost in their implementation. If the opportunity is not seized, a crisis will follow.
