Samsung Electronics informed that its third quarter revenue likely fell 9 percent to 70 trillion won or $55.4 billion from the same period a year earlier.
Samsung, Asia’s fourth-biggest listed company by market value, will release detailed earnings later this month.
Samsung announced its October-December operating profit likely dropped 69 percent to 4.3 trillion won ($3.37 billion) from 13.87 trillion won a year earlier.
It was Samsung’s smallest quarterly profit since the third quarter of 2014. Reuters news report said its quarterly profit tumbled to an eight-year low as a weakening global economy hammered memory chip prices and curbed demand for electronic devices.
Profits at the world’s largest memory chip, smartphone and TV maker are expected to shrink again in the current quarter, analysts said.
“All of Samsung’s businesses had a hard time, but chips and mobile especially,” said Lee Min-hee, analyst at BNK Investment & Securities.
“For the memory business, the decline in fourth-quarter demand was greater than expected as customers adjusted inventories in their effort to further tighten finances…,” Samsung said in a short preliminary earnings release on Friday.
Samsung said its mobile business’ profit declined in the fourth quarter as smartphone sales and revenue decreased due to weak demand resulting from prolonged macroeconomic issues.
“Memory chip prices fell in the mid-20 percent during the quarter, and high-end phones such as foldable didn’t sell as well,” said BNK Investment’s Lee.
Analysts said they expected Samsung’s profits to dive again in the current quarter, with a likely operating loss for the chips business as a glut drives a further drop in memory chip prices.
“Investors are hoping Samsung will need to reduce production, like Micron or SK Hynix said they would, which would help the memory industry overall,” said Eo Kyu-jin, an analyst at DB Financial Investment.
Samsung in October said that it did not expect much change to its 2023 investments. Analysts said that Samsung has a history of not announcing production cuts in memory chips, but could organically adjust investment by delaying bringing in equipment or through other ways.
