Samsung Electronics Co yesterday announced a record first quarter sales forecast and said it saw a better-than-expected performance for profits, even as analysts warned US tariffs could soon impact the South Korean tech giant.
In a regulatory filing, Samsung predicted its January to last month operating profits to rise to 6.6 trillion won (US$4.46 billion), down 0.15 percent from a year earlier but up about two percent on the previous quarter.
This was almost 34 percent higher than the average estimate, said South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, which cited its own financial data firm.
Photo: AFP
Samsung is a chip powerhouse, and one of the world’s largest makers of mobile phones.
The company said sales were also seen increasing to 79 trillion won, a near 10 percent jump from a year earlier, marking the highest first-quarter figure on record and the second-highest quarterly revenue ever.
The company did not disclose its net income or the detailed earnings of its business divisions.
However, experts say US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs could heavily impact Samsung as more than half of its smartphones are made in Vietnam, which now faces a 46 percent US duty.
“Samsung’s consensus-beating first-quarter operating profit implies its popular product offerings, such as Galaxy smartphones, could weather a tough business environment, when combined with strong cost control capabilities,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts said. “Yet the pace of profit growth might slow in the second quarter given most of its smartphones are made in Vietnam, which subjects them to US import tariffs.”
The high figures forecast were partly down to record sales of the new Galaxy S25 series phone, which was released in February, experts said.
Samsung also benefited from strong demand for server DRAM — mostly used in data centers — which offset slowing prices for more conventional high-end chips, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) analyst Tom Hsu (許家源) said.
There was “strong purchase momentum” from some US and Chinese cloud service providers, who were investing in their data centers, he said.
However, “with the US government imposing substantial tariffs, leading to a potential for economic uncertainties,” demand is likely to fall, which could hit prices, he added.
Because of US rules limiting the export of artificial intelligence chips to China, and Beijing’s push to use more local suppliers, fewer orders are going to companies such as Samsung, TrendForce analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said.
“Because of this, Samsung Foundry’s sales are expected to go down in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the previous quarter,” Chiao said.
Looking ahead, “geopolitical factors” are making it harder for some of Samsung’s Chinese customers to use advanced technology.
“This is dampening overall demand momentum,” and as a result, slowing Samsung’s total sales growth this year, she said.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the
RSS