Samsung's Spectacular Earnings Week Overshadowed by DRAM Cartel Lawsuit
Published on 07/05/2026 at 17:50 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Samsung Electronics shares staged an 8% rebound on Friday to close at 309,500 Won, snapping a stretch of selling by foreign investors just days before the company reveals its second-quarter results. The bounceback leaves the stock roughly 17% below the all-time high of 374,500 Won struck on June 19, but the underlying numbers tell a story of staggering profitability driven by a memory-chip price rally of historic proportions.
Analysts expect Samsung to report an operating profit of between 80 trillion and 86 trillion Won for the April-through-June period, with Korea Investment & Securities forecasting revenue of nearly 179 trillion Won. The engine behind those eye-popping figures is the memory division, where DRAM selling prices jumped 40% quarter-on-quarter and NAND prices surged 65%. That unit is on track to generate more than 110 trillion Won in revenue in a single quarter for the first time. Without a massive 18 trillion Won provision for employee bonuses, iM Securities estimates the memory business alone would have booked operating profit close to 95 trillion Won.
Yet even as the earnings release approaches, a new legal front threatens to complicate the narrative. On June 25, a group of 17 plaintiffs — 14 individuals and three small PC-trade companies — filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint, Garciaguirre v. Samsung Electronics, accuses Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron of colluding to restrict output of DDR3 and DDR4 memory chips, using the industry's shift toward AI-focused products as a smokescreen. The three companies collectively control about 90% of the global DRAM market, and the suit alleges that prices jumped roughly 700% over four years — a violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Samsung Electronics?
The allegations carry extra weight because Samsung and SK Hynix have been here before. Both pleaded guilty to illegal price-fixing in the 2000s, paying a combined $731 million in fines and sending several executives to prison. SK Hynix alone forked over $185 million in 2005. Micron, the third defendant, has already pushed back publicly, saying it competes "vigorously, fairly and in compliance with all applicable laws" in every market.
The timing is particularly awkward for Apple, a major customer of all three chipmakers. Already grappling with rising component costs, Apple has raised prices on several Mac and iPad models — moves that could be linked to the very DRAM price trends now under fire. The core legal question will be whether the production squeeze on legacy memory was a coordinated conspiracy or three rational players independently chasing the same high-margin strategy.
Despite the legal overhang, the stock's fundamental trajectory remains extraordinary. Samsung shares have soared 390.66% over the past twelve months and are up 141.36% year-to-date. Even after the recent pullback — a weekly decline of 8.84% and a monthly drop of 11.95% — the current price stands 414.12% above the 52-week low of 60,200 Won recorded in July 2025. The 50-day moving average sits at 296,350 Won, with the stock trading 4.44% above that level. The RSI of 48.1 points to neutral territory, but the annualized 30-day volatility of 96.58% underscores how jittery the market has become on any news touching the memory sector.
The lawsuit is still in its infancy; neither Samsung nor SK Hynix has filed a formal response, and no court date has been set. For now, the share price will likely hinge on DRAM and HBM demand rather than courtroom arguments — unless the case escalates into a regulatory investigation. The coming days alone are packed with catalysts: Samsung's Q2 numbers on Tuesday, the release of Federal Reserve minutes on July 9, and SK Hynix's Nasdaq IPO on July 10. Analysts such as those at Korea Investment & Securities maintain a bullish stance, with price targets as high as 590,000 Won. If Tuesday's report clears the elevated bar set by consensus, Samsung may soon test those June highs again — lawsuit or no lawsuit.
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