Samsung Electronics just became the first tech company to earn more than 100 trillion won in operating profit in a single quarter. The South Korean giant estimated Thursday that its operating profit for July through September reached 107.4 trillion won, about $80 billion. That is up 782.5% from a year earlier, The Korea Herald and The Korea Times reported.

Revenue also hit a record 195 trillion won, up 126.6%. Only one other company, Saudi oil giant Aramco, has ever posted a bigger quarterly operating profit. Samsung's figure is well above Nvidia's $63.7 billion for its most recent quarter, the Herald noted.

Memory chips did the heavy lifting. Samsung did not break out results by unit, but analysts estimate its memory business earned about 110 trillion won. Demand is booming for high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, a type of chip stacked next to AI processors. Sales of Samsung's newest HBM4 chips for Nvidia's next AI platform likely helped, the Times reported. Prices for regular memory chips also kept climbing.

But the boom has a flip side. The same rising chip costs are hurting Samsung's phone, TV and appliance businesses. Analysts estimate the unit that makes finished devices lost money for a second straight quarter, with guesses from 1.1 trillion to 2.64 trillion won. Global smartphone shipments fell 7.4% in the spring quarter because of memory shortages, according to research firm IDC.

"Memory chipmakers' ongoing production shifts to server DRAM and HBM are forcing mobile memory customers to absorb price hikes," said Meritz Securities analyst Kim Sun-woo. That can mean higher prices for phones and laptops.

The profit beat analysts' forecast of 106.64 trillion won, but sales came in under the 200.64 trillion won expected. Investors were cool: Samsung shares fell 1.77% in early afternoon trading in Seoul, as the Kospi index slipped on rising U.S. bond yields.

A stronger Korean won also trimmed the result, since Samsung earns much of its money in dollars.

Samsung's chip workers will share in the windfall. A special bonus pool equal to 10.5% of the chip unit's prior-year profit will be paid in Samsung shares next spring, if shareholders approve.

Samsung will release full results on Oct. 29.

What we know: Samsung estimates a record 107.4 trillion won profit, driven by memory chips.
What we don't: How big the losses were in phones and TVs until full results come out.