SEOUL: South Korean tech firm Samsung Electronics on Tuesday reported close to a five-fold jump in net income attributable to shareholders in the first quarter.
Profit after tax, less dividends payable to holders of preference shares, climbed to 6.62 trillion Korean won (around US$$4.8 billion) from 1.40 trillion won in the prior year.
Operating income for the first quarter also climbed to 6.61 trillion won from 0.64 trillion won in the previous year, as the Memory business returned to profit by addressing demand for high value-added products, according to German news agency (dpa).
The Mobile eXperience Business posted higher earnings and the Visual Display and Digital Appliances businesses also recorded increased profitability, the company said.
Sales for the first quarter grew to 71.92 trillion won from 63.75 trillion won in the prior year, on the back of strong sales of flagship Galaxy S24 smartphones and higher prices for memory semiconductors.
According to the company, the Memory Business returned to profit as it achieved qualitative growth by addressing the demand across servers, storage, PC and mobile, focusing on high-value-added products such as HBM, DDR5, server SSDs and UFS 4.0., along with the increase in ASP.
Looking ahead to the second quarter, the industry is expected to remain solid, led mainly by demand for generative artificial intelligence.
Demand for mobile is expected to be stable in the quarter, while PC customers are predicted to be affected by slow seasonality, making them likely to adjust their inventories ahead of new product launches in the second half of the year.
In the second quarter, overall demand for smartphones is expected to decline sequentially due to seasonality.
Accordingly, the Mobile eXperience or MX Business expects smartphone shipments to decline and tablet shipments to remain consistent sequentially.
In the second half of the year, the smartphone market is expected to rebound due to stabilizing consumer sentiment, the expansion of AI products and services and economic growth in emerging markets.
In the second half of 2024, overall TV demand is expected to recover gradually amid an uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment. – BERNAMA-dpa
