Samsung Electronics' QoQ operating profit is set to drop 34% year-on-year, but this is a positive signal for investors as the figure is better than expected and signals an early recovery in the memory market, which has suffered from low prices throughout the past year. . Sources say that the semiconductor business and the direction of smartphones in the last quarter could perform better than expected, but the production of displays has become a problematic area of activity.
The fourth quarter of 2019 has ended, and companies are starting to publish preliminary results of their activities in this period. Reportedly и South Korean giant Samsung Electronics is set to report a 34% year-over-year operating profit decline this month. This is somewhat less than predicted, so investors again began to talk with enthusiasm about the imminent recovery of the memory market.
Expected revenue of 59 trillion won ($50,9 billion) is unlikely to please analysts, as they predicted this indicator will reach a more significant amount of 60,7 trillion won, but experts tend to blame Samsung's display business for the failure, although low prices the memory is still to be considered. Forecasters for 2020 are encouraged not only by the emerging normalization of relations between China and the United States, but also by the trend towards increasing memory prices while reducing production costs.
A cause for concern may be an incident in December at one of Samsung's Korean memory chip manufacturing facilities using so-called ultra-hard ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. A power outage lasting about a minute is said to have damaged a batch of products, and the cumulative damage could be measured in several million dollars. On the scale of Samsung's activities, this is not such a large amount, it will only slightly affect the results of the quarter.
Source: 3dnews.ru