Samsung has announced its earnings for the second quarter (Q2) of this year. The company's smartphone business performed quite well and helped it stay afloat during testing times. The South Korean firm's semiconductor chip business struggled to keep pace with its competitors in the AI semiconductor chip race, so its profits in Q2 2025 more than halved compared to last year.

Even though the company's revenue rose slightly to KRW 74.56 trillion (~$53.5 billion) in Q2 2025 compared to the same quarter last year, its operating profit was just KRW 4.7 trillion (~$3.4 billion), a massive drop from KRW 10.4 trillion (~$7.5 billion) that it reported last year. Of that profit, KRW 3.1 trillion (~$2.23 billion) was contributed by it smartphone business alone, which speaks volumes about the performance of its smartphones and other mobile devices.

The company's semiconductor chip division used to be its cash cow, usually accounting for 2/3rd of its total profit. However, as it is struggling with the sales of its HBM chips, its in-house Exynos chips, and semiconductor chip fabrication (foundry), the operating profit of the chip division fell by a massive 94% compared to last year.

Samsung blamed bad performance of its chip business to low utilization rates of its foundry business, inventory value adjustments, and US export controls on sales of advanced AI chips to Chinese firms. The company had warned investors about its low performance earlier this month via its earnings estimates.

In the second half of the year, the company plans to improve its competitiveness in the advanced semiconductor chip segment and meet growing demand for high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI servers. The company recently announced a $16.5 billion deal with Tesla to fabricate 2nm AI chips in the USA by 2027. This deal is expected to boost the company's chip business and help it bring more customers for its advanced nodes.