South Korea's tech giant Samsung Electronics has finalized its earnings for the first quarter of 2019.
Its operating profits dropped to a low not seen since since the 3rd quarter of 2016.
The company's weak earnings were mainly due to the downturn in the global chip market.
Our Ko Roonhee reports.
Samsung Electronics' operating profits during the January-to-March period marked an over two-year low... mainly due to poor chip sales.
The company revealed on Tuesday that the figure marked around 5-point-36 billion U.S. dollars.
This is down more than 60-percent on-year...and more than 40-percent on-quarter.
Sales also slumped by more than 10-percent during the same period,... standing at around 45-billion dollars.
As for why, analysts point to weak memory chip earnings.
Chip prices have been falling...mainly due to oversupply and lower demand.
The average price of DRAM chips fell more than 20-percent in the January-to-March period, compared to the previous quarter.
In addition, many IT companies have been postponing investment or clearing stocks...as part of a 'wait-and-see' approach for chip prices to go down even further.
Because operating profits in the chip market account for around two-thirds of the South Korean tech giant's total profits, this directly affected Samsung's overall earnings.
Display panels suffered a loss for the first time since the 1st quarter of 2016.
This was mainly due to lower prices of LCD panels and fewer shipments of OLED panels.
Operating profits for Samsung's IT and Mobile communications, including smartphones, marked a 50-percent increase compared to the previous quarter...thanks to the popularity of the Galaxy S10.
Meanwhile, to turn things around, Samsung announced earlier that it will venture into other sectors outside the memory field.
The firm plans to invest around 116 billion U.S. dollars in its system-on-chips business through 2030.
Ko Roon-hee, Arirang News.
