Samsung Electronics Co yesterday forecast a record operating profit of 17.5 trillion won (US$15.49 billion) in the third quarter of the year led by solid demand for its memory chips.
Sales for the July-to-September quarter are expected to reach 65 trillion won, the world’s largest maker of smartphones and memory chips said in a regulatory filing.
The earnings forecast from the South Korean electronics giant beat market consensus of about 17.2 trillion won, with analysts expecting a jump in profits on strong performance by the company’s semiconductor unit, market researcher FnGuide said.
Third quarter operating profit was up 20.4 percent from a year ago, while sales jumped by 4.7 percent.
“Operating profit seems to be at its peak now,” Hyundai Motor Securities Co Ltd analyst Greg Roh told Bloomberg News.
“Early next year might be the right time to buy Samsung before growth picks up again in the bottom half of next year,” he added.
Samsung shares rose as much as 1.8 percent in early trading in Seoul.
Samsung withholds net profit and sector-by-sector business performance until it releases its final earnings report, which is expected later this month.
The South Korean tech giant has seen profits soar over the past few years, largely thanks to solid demand for memory chips used in mobile devices, which has helped offset weakening profits from its own mobile phone production.
The firm in August unveiled its latest Galaxy Note 9 model and is due to launch a new line up of mobile devices under its Galaxy line next week, fueling speculation over the world’s first bendable smartphone.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day