By Allen Tsai | Fri Apr 15, 2005 5:58 am |
Samsung Electronics announced a 52 percent drop in first-quarter profit resulting in falling flat-screen prices, lower profit margins on cell phones, and losses at its credit card affiliate.
The company recorded sales of KRW13.8122 trillion, a 0.6% decrease, operating income of KRW2.1499 trillion, a 40% rise, and net income of KRW1.4984 trillion, a drop of 18% from the previous quarter.In particular, the rise in operating income came in spite of the difficult business environment caused by factors such as the strengthening Korean Won and a depressed IT industry. While sales decreased, operating profits increased on the back of strong growth in its NAND flash memory business, favorable mobilephone sales and conscious efforts to reduce selling, general and administrative expenses. In addition, margins increased by 5 percentage points to 16% in the first quarter, but net income was impacted by the equity method loss incurred from the increase in reserves at Samsung Card. Sales and operating income of the Semiconductor Business decreased to KRW4.4756 trillion and KRW1.3851 trillion, respectively, because of seasonal factors and currency exchange rates. However the business continued to report high margins of over 30%, attesting to its unique cost competitiveness. With a record quarterly mobile phone shipment of 24.5 million units, the Telecommunication Network Business recorded sales of KRW4.8394 trillion, a 12% rise, and operating income of KRW840.5 billion, a dramatic increase from the prior quarter. In addition, margins improved to 17%. This performance is attributed to the company's strategy to expand output in the first quarter, as well as the 4-month cumulative sales of 3.1 million units of the D500, the company's popular blue-black GSM phone. The LCD Business reported revenue and operating income figures of KRW1.8983 trillion and KRW23.1 billion, respectively. Despite a decline in LCD panel prices, operating profits increased and the company expects its performance to improve in the second half with a growth in demand for LCD TVs. Digital Media Business sales decreased by 13.8% to KRW1.6585 trillion because of restructuring efforts that resulted in the termination or reduced emphasis of its low- to mid-end product lines. Higher margins from sales of premium product lines diminished the size of operating losses, compared to the prior quarter. Sales of its Digital Appliance Business increased 4.1% to KRW785.8 billion with the growth of sales of high-end home appliances and reservation sales of air-conditioners. The business reported an operating loss of KRW13.8 billion, an improvement from the fourth quarter. Dr. Woosik Chu, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the IR Team, states, "Despite the challenging business environment, operating profit increased over the prior quarter, demonstrating the inherent strength of Samsung's business model.
|
|
Thu Feb 09, 2012 12:41 pm | By
Apple may shift litigation strategies, attacking the process of "copying" rather than products, after losing a critical patent battle to Samsung in Germany, raising questions of the iPad maker's costly and aggressive tactics.
|
|
|
|
Mon Feb 06, 2012 12:09 pm | By
Samsung's ultra-slim Galaxy S3's sleeker design and other rumored features could directly compete with Apple's iPhone 5 when released this spring.
|
|
|
|
Fri Feb 03, 2012 11:53 am | By
Apple is widening its patent case against Samsung in Australia, suggesting the lawsuit between the two competitors is going to intensify before any resolution.
|
|
|
|
Wed Feb 01, 2012 4:00 pm | By
Samsung will delay the release of the Galaxy S3 smartphone until later this year, banking on the success of current offerings to produce strong sales well into 2012.
|
|
|
|
Tue Jan 31, 2012 2:21 pm | By
The European Commission is investigating whether Samsung's use of patents to sue Apple breaks EU antitrust rules, a development that may put the company's expanding cases and other companies' court actions in jeopardy.
|
|
|
|