Samsung reports Q3 profits of US$5.9B
Samsung Electronics today announced its third-quarter profits between July and September of 6.56 trillion won (US $5.9 billion) on the back of strong mobile sales, which masked a decline in chip sales.
In total, the company pulled in revenues of 52.18 trillion won (US$47.5 billion) for the three months, stating a strong performance in handheld phones and display panels.
The revenue was largely driven by the Korean tech giant's IT and mobile division, which brought in 29.92 trillion won (US$26.6 trillion) in revenue, a rise of 82 percent compared to the same quarter last year. The company said in announcing its results that sales of the Samsung Galaxy S III, the various Galaxy Tab products, and the Galaxy Note 10.1 all contributed to the strong quarter for the company.
Samsung's long-term evolution (LTE) or 4G equipment lifted in the third quarter, but the company said that strong competition forced down profit margins on those products.
The display panel division also performed well, seeing a 19 percent increase in year-on-year sales, and accounting for 8.46 trillion won (US$7.7 billion) in revenue for the quarter.
Samsung's chip division suffered due to weak demand and oversupply of PC dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips in the global market, resulting in an 8 percent drop in year-on-year sales to 1.15 trillion won (US$1 billion). Samsung said it expects the PC DRAM demand to continue to be weak for the rest of the year, but that new mobile device launches next year will increase sales of application processors and image censors.
Samsung's senior VP Robert Yi said that the company broke its quarterly profit record amid tough conditions.
"The business environment remained difficult, with global economic uncertainties persisting amid the fiscal concerns in the US and Europe. However, we continued to break our quarterly profit records," he said. "We will do our best to sustain our earnings momentum throughout the fourth quarter, by implementing strategies we have developed for our businesses."
The results came during a tough quarter for Samsung stocks, after the company was ordered by a US court to pay damages of US$1.05 billion to Apple for infringing on iPhone design characteristics and patents.
Apple announced its fourth-quarter results this morning, announcing revenue of US$36 billion and a net profit of US$8.2 billion.