Samsung Electronics Co yesterday reported a 10-fold annual increase in operating profit for the first quarter of the year as the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies drives a rebound in the markets for computer memory chips.
The South Korean semiconductor and smartphone giant said its operating profit for the January-to-March quarter came in at 6.6 trillion won (US$4.8 billion), up from the 640 billion won it earned during the same period last year.
Revenue rose 12.8 percent to 71.9 trillion won, driven by higher prices for memory chips and robust sales of its flagship Galaxy S24 smartphones, the company said.
Photo: AFP
Samsung earned 1.91 trillion won in operating profit from its semiconductor business, marking the division’s first quarterly profit since the fourth quarter of 2022, as the chip market continues to recover from a cyclical slump deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic and global trade tensions.
The company projected that the memorychip market would remain robust in the coming months, driven by the expansion of generative AI technologies, which are increasing demand for conventional chips used in servers and advanced chips designed to process AI, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM).
Responding to increased demand for AI chips, Samsung last month started mass production of its latest HBM chips — 8-layer HBM3E — and plans to start producing the 12-layer version of the chips during the second quarter, the company said.
“In the second half of 2024, business conditions are expected to remain positive with demand — mainly around generative AI — holding strong, despite continued volatility relating to macroeconomic trends and geopolitical issues,” Samsung said in a statement.
For smartphones, the company would continue to focus on boosting sales of its flagship device, the Galaxy S24, which is built with an array of new features enabled by AI, including live translation during phone calls in 13 languages and 17 dialects.
Samsung said it plans to expand AI features beyond the S24 to other mobile devices as it expects the technologies to drive growth in the smartphone market in the coming months amid improvements in global consumer spending.
RECYCLE: Taiwan would aid manufacturers in refining rare earths from discarded appliances, which would fit the nation’s circular economy goals, minister Kung said Taiwan would work with the US and Japan on a proposed cooperation initiative in response to Beijing’s newly announced rare earth export curbs, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. China last week announced new restrictions requiring companies to obtain export licenses if their products contain more than 0.1 percent of Chinese-origin rare earths by value. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday responded by saying that Beijing was “unreliable” in its rare earths exports, adding that the US would “neither be commanded, nor controlled” by China, several media outlets reported. Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato yesterday also
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
‘DRAMATIC AND POSITIVE’: AI growth would be better than it previously forecast and would stay robust even if the Chinese market became inaccessible for customers, it said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its full-year revenue growth outlook after posting record profit for last quarter, despite growing market concern about an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble. The company said it expects revenue to expand about 35 percent year-on-year, driven mainly by faster-than-expected demand for leading-edge chips for AI applications. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker in July projected that revenue this year would expand about 30 percent in US dollar terms. The company also slightly hiked its capital expenditure for this year to US$40 billion to US$42 billion, compared with US$38 billion to US$42 billion it set previously. “AI demand actually
RARE EARTHS: The call between the US Treasury Secretary and his Chinese counterpart came as Washington sought to rally G7 partners in response to China’s export controls China and the US on Saturday agreed to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle. Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation. Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that
RSS