April 26, 2024

• 

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics may report forecast-beating performance results largely backed by its chip business in its first-quarter earnings guidance next week, industry sources said on March 31.

Although the tech giant announces detailed figures of each business later in the month, Samsung’s chip business is presumed to be the top contributor for its stellar performance.

Some brokerage houses here expect Samsung’s first-quarter operating profit to hover above its previous record of 10.1 trillion won (US$9 billion) posted in the third quarter of 2013.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, Samsung’s operating profit came at 9.2 trillion won. Of the amount, the chip business garnered 4.9 trillion won, which marks a sharp rise from the comparable figure of 3.6 trillion won in the third quarter of last year.

The global chip prices have been rising since the second half of 2017. According to the industry tracker DRAMeXchange, the price of DDR4, the main dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, doubled as of end-February compared to June last year.

Samsung’s mobile business, on the other hand, is expected to continue its downbeat mode in the first quarter amid the rising portion of mid-to-low models in its smartphone sales.

By Alex Lee and newswires (alexlee@heraldcorp.com)