Samsung just reported its best quarter ever. Operating profit jumped 753% year-over-year to 57.2 trillion won, more than the company made in all of 2025 combined. The chip division was responsible for over 90% of that profit. The phone division shrank by 35% and is heading toward its first-ever annual loss.
This is the strangest profit problem in tech right now. Samsung is one of the world's largest memory chip makers and one of the world's largest phone makers, and right now those two businesses are working against each other. AI companies are buying every memory chip Samsung can produce at record prices. The chip division loves it. The phone division has to pay those same record prices for the memory inside every Galaxy phone, which means the more Samsung sells smartphones, the worse the math gets. The Galaxy S26 is selling at record volumes and the phone division is still losing money, because each unit sold means Samsung's chip division charging Samsung's phone division full market price for parts that used to be cheap internal transfers.
Galaxy Glasses do not have this problem. The expensive parts inside them are the lenses, the camera, and a Qualcomm chip designed for smart glasses — not the kind of memory AI companies are fighting over. There is a 12MP camera, lightweight speakers, a 50-gram frame, and lenses that darken in the sun, all targeting a $379 to $499 price point. That is the same price as Meta's Ray-Ban line, on a product that costs less to build than a flagship phone, in a category where margins are not yet under attack from AI memory demand.
Samsung is chasing Meta. Meta and EssilorLuxottica sold over seven million smart glasses in 2025, and Samsung wants a piece of a category that is finally proven. But the chip economics push the same direction. Galaxy Glasses are a product Samsung can make money on without buying its own memory back from itself at AI prices.
The reveal is targeting Samsung's July Unpacked event, with retail availability expected in the fall. When they ship, Samsung will have a wearable category where its profits stay in its own pocket.