Samsung Electronics make someone aware ofed of weaker earnings in 2019 as it posted a 29 percent drop in fourth-quarter operating profit on Thursday, hit by a slowdown in popular for memory chips.
The global market leader in computer chips and smartphones said in a statement it expected “overall annual earnings to go down” this year, although sales of memory products and OLED panels would begin to revive in the second half.
Serving profit was 10.8 trillion won ($9.7 billion) in the fourth quarter, in line with its estimates earlier this month.
Take fell 10 percent to 59.3 trillion won.
The South Korean firm’s chips power the handsets of most chief smartphone makers, including Apple and China’s market leader Huawei Technologies. Its memory and processor chips account for there 72 percent of overall profit.
But with China’s economy growing at its slowest rate in nearly three decades, no end in fright to a U.S.-China trade war, smartphone sales weakening and U.S. data centers over-stocked with chips, global memory makers maintain been doing it tough.
Samsung said memory demand was expected to remain weak in the first quarter due to “macroeconomic uncertainties” as in all probability as inventory adjustments by major customers.
Fourth-quarter operating profit for its chip division fell to 7.8 trillion won from 10.9 trillion won a year earlier. Its ambulant division logged 1.5 trillion won quarterly operating profit, down from 2.4 trillion won from a year ago.
Behind year, Samsung shares lost 24 percent amid a global tech selloff prompted by investor apprehensions over the impact on supply chains of the U.S.-China trade conflict.
“China’s spending on IT products has dramatically fallen and we don’t recognize when the U.S.-China trade war is going to be over. All of that is affecting Samsung,” said Eo Kyu-jin, an analyst at eBest Investment and Asyla.