Samsung Electronics said weakness in the global smartphone market would slow earnings growth. Samsung reported record quarterly profit thanks to demand for semiconductors used in servers, Reuters reported.
In a statement issued on Thursday Samsung said revenue of the company jumped 19.8 percent to 60.6 trillion won.
Samsung does not reveal the revenue from its telecom network business. Samsung aims to enhance business fundamentals by pursuing the supply of LTE base stations to advanced markets such as North America in Q2.
Samsung, which is a major supplier to India’s Reliance Jio, in a presentation to investors said it will expand supply of next-generation network solutions for 5G commercialization.
“Generating overall earnings growth across the company will be a challenge due to weakness in the display panel segment and a decline in profitability in the mobile business amid rising competition in the high-end segment,” Samsung said in a statement.
Operating profit of Samsung was 15.6 trillion won or $14.4 billion in the first quarter, up 58 percent from a year ago.
The South Korean rival and supplier to Apple shipped about 10 million units of its Galaxy S9 smartphone since sales began in mid-March. It helped Samsung’s mobile business book 3.8 trillion in quarterly profits, up 82 percent from a year ago.
The chip business was Samsung’s top earner again as it booked a record 11.6 trillion won operating profit in January-March, from 10.9 trillion won in the previous quarter, despite signs the recent boom in memory chips was tapering off.
A drop in NAND flash chip prices, used in permanent data storage, was offset in the quarter by strong sales of server DRAM chips driven by technology firms’ investments in data centres. This raised the average price of DRAM chips, used for temporary data storage.