Samsung shares rise 2.62% as TIME honors three products

The session in numbers

Samsung Electronics closed at 215,500 won (about US$161.86) on October 16. That was up 2.62% from 210,000 won at the previous session.

SK hynix, the country’s other large memory chip maker, rose 0.79% to 1,272,000 won (about US$955.39). It had ended the previous session at 1,262,000 won.

TIGER 200, an exchange-traded fund used here as a gauge of the broader Korean market, gained 2.05% to 89,060 won.

The Bank of Korea put the won at 1,331.4 per US dollar for the day.

Samsung beat both its memory rival and the market gauge. The rise came a day after the stock fell 9.48% on October 15, to 210,000 won from 232,000 won on October 14, and the October 16 close was still 7.11% below that October 14 level.

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The day’s news

TIME honors. Samsung said on Friday that TIME had chosen three of its products for the Best Inventions of 2026. Yonhap carried the news at 09:16 KST. The US weekly news magazine released its selection on Thursday, US time, The Korea Times reported. The Galaxy S26 Ultra smartphone was chosen in the Consumer Electronics category, according to The Korea Times. A product from Samsung’s Bespoke AI range was also among the three, The Korea Times reported.

Analysts on the selling. Market watchers told The Korea Times on Friday that the recent heavy selling in Samsung Electronics and SK hynix shares had gone too far. As they saw it, the selling stemmed mainly from a shortage of buyers for Korean stocks and from a softening of investor confidence. They said earnings had not worsened. They also described the outlook for memory chips as strong, The Korea Times reported.

In preliminary consolidated figures filed on October 8, Samsung estimated third-quarter 2026 revenue at 195 trillion won and operating profit at 107.4 trillion won. That operating profit was up 782.5% from a year earlier and was the highest in at least six quarters.

Employee posts. The Korea Times also reported that some Samsung employees had been criticized online. The criticism followed posts that appeared to welcome a recent steep fall in the company’s share price. The posts appeared on Blind, an anonymous app where staff discuss their employers.

Close of day

Samsung Electronics recovered some ground on Friday. Its 2.62% rise was larger than the gains for SK hynix and the TIGER 200 fund. The company’s news was a product honor from TIME. Analysts quoted by The Korea Times said the earlier selling reflected weak market sentiment rather than earnings.

What comes next

Samsung is scheduled to hold a conference call on its third-quarter 2026 results on October 29 at 10:00 KST.

The period for the share buyback that Samsung decided in a filing on August 21 is scheduled to end on November 21. The program covers 53,285,968 common shares worth 15.0 trillion won, which are intended for employee stock compensation.

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Information only, not investment advice.