On Jan. 8, Samsung Electronics announced its preliminary quarterly earnings. The world's largest smartphone maker predicted an operating profit of 6.1 trillion won ($5.1 billion) for the October-December quarter, which is weaker than expected.
Its preliminary Q4 operating profit fell 17 percent from the previous quarter’s operating profit of about 7.3 trillion won or US$6.3 billion.
Its operating profit, which had been on an upward trajectory since it tumbled to the 4 trillion won range in the third quarter of 2014, has reversed course owing to falling semiconductor prices. The average price of DDR3 memory, which dropped over 50 percent to 3 dollars in Jan. 2014, fell further to 1.78 dollars at the end of Oct.
Dwindling demand for premium smartphones and displays also made a dent in the company’s Q4 earnings. The global economic downturn and sluggish demand for IT are projected to continuously weigh down on the tech giant’s earnings for the time being.
Overall, Samsung made a good showing in 2015. Its 2015 operating profit rose 5.35 percent y-o-y to 26.37 trillion won. Samsung logged 200.34 trillion in 2015 sales, marking the fourth consecutive year of posting sales over 200 trillion won.
