The world’s biggest smartphone and memorychip maker, Samsung Electronics Co, yesterday reported second-quarter net profit slumping by more than half in the face of a weakening chip market, and as a trade row builds between Seoul and Tokyo.
Net profit in the three months to June were 5.18 trillion won (US$4.38 billion), down 53 percent year-on-year, Samsung said in a statement.
Operating profits plunged 56 percent to 6.6 trillion won in the second quarter, the firm said, while sales fell 4 percent to 56.13 trillion won.
“The weakness and price declines in the memory chip market persisted ... despite a limited recovery in demand,” it said.
In mobile phones, it achieved “stronger shipments on new mass-market models, but was overall weighed down by slower sales of flagship models and increased marketing expenses,” it added.
Samsung earlier this year launched its top-end S10 5G smartphone after South Korea won the global race to commercially launch the world’s first nationwide 5G network.
However, in April it was embarrassingly forced to delay the release of its new and hotly anticipated Galaxy Fold smartphones after reviewers provided with early devices reported screen problems within days of use.
A simmering dispute between South Korea and Japan, which has seen Tokyo impose restrictions on chemical exports crucial to the South’s world-leading chip and smartphone companies, is also expected to affect Samsung’s key products.
“The company is facing challenges from uncertainties not only in business areas, but also from changes in the global macroeconomic environment,” it said.
In the second half, Samsung said it “expects persistent uncertainties in the memory business,” while “overall sluggish demand in the broad smartphone market may limit upside potential” as competition increases.
Samsung is by far the biggest of the family-controlled conglomerates that dominate business in the world’s 11th-largest economy and it is crucial to South Korea’s economic health.
Samsung shares closed down 2.6 percent.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained