Tepid demand for Samsung Electronics Co’s newest Galaxy smartphones triggered a fifth straight monthly decline for the electronics maker, wiping out about US$44 billion in market value since April.
Shares of the world’s biggest smartphone vendor slumped 8.1 percent last month, extending their longest losing streak since December 1983.
Samsung dropped almost US$12 billion of value last month alone as the South Korean company surrendered market share to Apple Inc and Chinese competitors.
Samsung’s decision to steal a march on Apple and advance the release of new Galaxy smartphones failed to dispel pessimism about its second-half earnings.
Apple is expected to unveil a new iPhone on Sept. 9 and release it in time for the crucial end-of-year holiday shopping season.
“We all know its [Samsung] smartphone business isn’t doing well,” Seoul-based IBK Securities Co analyst Lee Seung-Woo said.
“I can’t really figure out when the stock will stop declining. The fundamentals look problematic,” he added.
The stock has been the biggest drag on the 758-member Kospi index in the past six months, leading the benchmark 2.2 percent lower in the period.
It ended Friday at 1,089,000 won.
The drop in market capitalization is almost equivalent to the value of General Motors Co.
Samsung profit has fallen for five straight quarters, and third-quarter net income is estimated at 5.33 trillion won (US$4.8 billion), down from 5.63 trillion won in the three months ended June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Samsung’s global smartphone market share fell more than 3 percentage points in the second quarter and it no longer is the top seller in China, the world’s biggest mobile phone market.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last