Chief financial officer Park Soon-cheol (pictured) told analysts that “growing policy risks” are fuelling uncertainty across its chip business and making mobile gadgets pricier.

“Ongoing uncertainty surrounding US tariff policies continues to pose a potential risk of demand slowdown,” said Park. He added that recent changes to export controls targeting AI technology had already hurt confidence in expected second-half sales.

The warning follows a roughly 40 per cent plunge in first-quarter operating profit for Samsung’s chip division, which took a hammering from tightening US export rules on AI hardware heading to China. Despite some last-minute stockpiling by Chinese customers, the new rules gutted high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chip shipments.

Samsung said the US's temporary pause on “reciprocal tariffs” prompted customers to rush orders, but the company fears that might have frontloaded demand and left little for later in the year. And with Washington now threatening new chip duties “very soon”, the mood isn’t likely to lift.

Analysts say around one-third of Samsung’s HBM revenue comes from China, which makes these restrictions particularly painful. Worse still, Samsung still hasn’t got Nvidia’s approval for its latest HBM designs, giving rival SK Hynix a leg-up in the AI gold rush. Samsung shares have tanked more than 28 per cent this year, while SK Hynix managed a modest two per cent rise.

The chipmaker threw $6.3 billion (around €5.9 billion) at R&D in the first quarter, a 16 per cent rise year-on-year, as it tries to get its 12-layer HBM3E chips into gear for AI servers. It’s also looking at shifting TV and appliance production out of Mexico and Vietnam if tariffs hit harder post-July, when suspended duties may kick back in at 10 per cent or more.

Seoul-based Petra Capital’s Albert Yong said: “Samsung’s performance is unlikely to improve dramatically without HBM sales to Nvidia.”