Samsung Announces Record-High Profits

Korea’s Samsung has announced its highest quarterly earnings ever. The company reported strong sales of its smartphones, but noted that competition remains fierce.

MarketWatch’s Min-Jeong Lee wrote, “Samsung Electronics Co. on Friday said its first-quarter profit rose 42% to a record high on strong smartphone sales, though the pace of its earnings growth continued to slow. The South Korean company said net profit for the three months ended March 31 rose to a record 7.15 trillion won ($6.4 billion), higher than 5.05 trillion won a year earlier. That compares with a quarterly record of 7.04 trillion won set in the fourth quarter of last year.”

Youkyung Lee with the Associated Press noted, “Samsung’s IT and Mobile Communications division that makes smartphones, tablets, PCs and cameras reported 6.51 trillion won in operating income for the first quarter, up 56 percent from a year earlier and its highest since Samsung reorganized the division to merge PC and handset departments.”

Bloomberg’s Jungah Lee added, “Demand for Samsung’s devices, including the flagship Galaxy S4 that went on sale today and cheaper phones targeting emerging markets, are stoking sales in the $358 billion handset market and driving most of the Suwon, South Korea-based company’s profits. Samsung said competition in the market, which is already slowing Apple’s growth, may intensify this year. ‘It yet again succeeded in taking away some of the smartphone share from Apple,’ said Lee Seung Woo, an analyst at IBK Securities Co. ‘Demand for Galaxy S4 is outstripping its supply.'”

ZDNet quoted Samsung’s Robert Yi who cautioned, “We may experience stiffer competition in the mobile business due to expansion of the mid- to low-end smartphone market.”