Seoul, July 31
Samsung Electronics said on Thursday that its net income plunged nearly 50 per cent in the second quarter (Q2), as its semiconductor division logged its lowest earnings in over a year due to sluggish demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM).
In a regulatory filing, the company reported a net income of 5.11 trillion won (US$3.7 billion) for the April-June period, down 48 percent from 9.84 trillion won a year earlier, reports news agency.
The earnings fell short of market expectations. The average estimate of net profit by analysts stood at 7.29 trillion won, according to a survey.
Operating profit stood at 4.67 trillion won, down 55.2 percent from a year ago, while revenue rose 0.7 percent to 74.56 trillion won.
The semiconductor division posted 400 billion won in operating profit, the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2023, when it recorded a 2 trillion-won operating loss.
Samsung Electronics attributed the weak bottom line in its chip division to one-off costs, such as inventory value adjustments.
Despite a weak profit, chip sales climbed 11 percent on-year to 27.9 trillion won, driven by demand for premium server chips and increased foundry orders.
Its main memory business posted stable growth, supported by sales of HBM3E products and memory for data centre servers.