Samsung is breaking away profits - the reason should worry the entire industry
Samsung's profits have shrunk by a whopping 29 percent, the corporation warns. The reason is not the weakening smartphone business. And he could have much more far-reaching consequences.
It is an unusual step. Although Samsung has not yet announced its concrete business figures for the last quarter, the company warns once before the worst number of the report: 29 percent, the profits between October and December compared to the previous year plummeted. The reason for this should not only be a serious headache for the tech industry.
Because unlike many might suspect at first glance, it is not the collapsing smartphone business that puts Samsung under pressure. Instead, of all things, the great hopefuls of last year have clearly collapsed: the business as a supplier of microprocessors.
QUARTERLY FIGURES
From the Cash Cow to the problem child: Samsung has a smartphone problem
The bearer of hope breaks in
Above all, the memory chips used in all smartphones, computers, servers and other smart devices had brought enormous profits to Koreans in the last year. For months, the demand for the small chips was greater than the supply, prices rose again and again. Last spring, the chips made up a whopping 75 percent of Samsung's consolidated profit. That seems to be over now.
"We expect revenues to continue to be impacted by the difficult situation in the storage business in the first quarter of 2019," Samsung said in a statement. For the last quarter of the slump is quite noticeable: 8.4 billion euros profit is expected for the fourth quarter, in the three months before, there were nearly 14 billion.