Samsung has reported its earnings for Q2 2018, in which the company has made operating profit of 14.87 trillion won ($13.3 billion), up just 5.68% YoY for the April-June 2018 period. After fourth straight record profit, this is a bit disappointing, due to softer sales of smartphones and display panels, despite robust demand for memory chips.
It reported revenue of 58.48 trillion won, down 4.1% from 61 trillion won last year and net profit of 11.04 trillion won, almost same from a year earlier.
IM sector that includes Mobile Communications and Networks Businesses posted 24.00 trillion won consolidated revenue and 2.67 trillion won operating profit for the quarter, down 29.1% compared to 3.77 trillion won in the same quarter last year.
The company said that it will launch the new Note model with superior performance at a reasonable price in this quarter.
Regarding the shipments and the expectations in mobile sector, Samsung said:
Amid the sluggish premium smartphone market and intensifying competition, Samsung’s smartphone shipments and revenue declined QoQ due to the slow sales of Galaxy S9 and S9+ as well as the phasing out of older low-end models.
The Company posted a drop in quarterly operating profit due to higher marketing expenses. Meanwhile, the Networks Business saw a healthy sales growth as major overseas carrier partners increased investments in LTE expansion.
Demand for smartphones and tablets is forecast to increase in the second half as the market enters a period of strong seasonality, but competition is seen intensifying as new smartphone models are released. In response, Samsung will seek to expand sales by introducing a new Galaxy Note earlier than usual, which offers exceptional performance for a reasonable price. Also, Samsung plans to strengthen price competitiveness and adopt advanced technology in the mass models.
Looking to the future, the Company will continue to reinforce product competitiveness based on hardware leadership, by adopting cutting-edge technology and new form factors and gaining leadership in 5G. Furthermore, based on the ever-evolving Bixby ecosystem which connects smartphones, TVs, refrigerators and other IoT devices, Samsung aims to offer personalized service to customers and create synergy with other services such as Samsung Pay.