Samsung Electronics logs record sales, 2nd-highest operating profit in Q3

Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported strong third-quarter earnings on the continued robust performance of its key semiconductor business.

Its net profit rose 31.3 per cent from a year earlier to 12.29 trillion won ($10.5 billion) in the July-September period, the world’s largest memory chip and smartphone vendor said in a regulatory filing.

Operating profit jumped 28 per cent in the third quarter to 15.82 trillion won, the largest since the third quarter of 2018 and the second-highest ever. Sales hit a quarterly record of 73.98 trillion won, up from 66.96 trillion won from a year earlier, reports Yonhap news agency.

On a quarterly basis, Samsung’s operating profit was up 26 per cent from the second quarter, and sales were up 10 per cent.

The company’s strong performance was powered largely by its chip business that has continued to show solid growth, with rising memory chip prices, enhanced yield rates and improved profitability at its chip contract manufacturing business.

Its mobile business gained new momentum with the August launch of two new foldable smartphones — Galaxy Z Fold3 and Galaxy Z Flip3. The weak Korean won also contributed to the company’s top and bottom lines.

An expected fall in memory chip prices amid slower demand for IT products, as countries have moved to lift pandemic restrictions, however, could weigh on the company’s earnings in the fourth quarter.

Industry tracker TrendForce predicted DRAM prices to fall by 15 to 20 per cent annually in the fourth quarter and enter a downward trend early next year, as the supply is expected to outstrip demand.

The company said strong DRAM demand and an improved foundry business led to a “significant improvement in earnings” in the memory business.

Operating profit from the semiconductor unit stood at 10.6 trillion won in the third quarter, more than double the 5 trillion won a year ago. The figure took up 64 per cent of the company’s third-quarter operating profit.

“The overall price situation remained favorable and the company set a new record for quarterly bit shipments and the second-highest revenue for DRAM, backed in particular by significant growth in server sales,” the company said.

While the component supply issue and its potential disruption in set builds still remain a major concern, the company expected demand for servers to stay solid in the fourth quarter thanks to “the new CPU adoption and expansion of data center investments”.

Samsung’s IT and Mobile Communications division racked up revenue of 28.42 trillion won. Operating profit was 3.36 trillion won.

Samsung’s display panel business continued to heavily contribute in the third quarter, with sales and operating profit reaching 8.86 trillion won and 1.49 trillion won, respectively.