Samsung Electronics revealed that its revenue will increase 18 percent in Q1 2022 from the same period a year earlier to a record 77 trillion won.
Samsung will release detailed earnings on April 28.
Samsung, in a short preliminary earnings release, said it will report a 50 percent increase in operating earnings to post its highest first-quarter profit since 2018, as solid demand underpinned prices for memory chips.
Samsung, the world’s largest memory chip and smartphone maker, estimated first-quarter profit at 14.1 trillion won ($11.6 billion).
Though chip prices dipped in the first quarter, analysts said they had held up better than expected due to solid demand as well as cautious investment spending by chipmakers and limited capacity expansion. This buoyed Samsung’s chip earnings which make up about half of its total profits, Reuters news report said.
The price of one type of DRAM chip, widely used in data centres, fell 8 percent during the first quarter according to research firm TrendForce, while the prices of NAND flash memory chips, used for data storage in tech devices, fell between 5 percent and 10 percent.
Analysts expect DRAM prices to continue to fall in the April-June quarter as rising inflation could potentially hurt demand for PCs, laptops, and smartphones.
However, a raw material contamination in February at a NAND Flash chip plant owned by Japan’s Kioxia and American firm Western Digital is expected to drive up NAND Flash prices by 5-10 percent, offsetting the effects of modestly high inventories maintained by buyers, TrendForce said.
“Amid limited supply, demand for memory will start to pick up, especially from data centers, in the third quarter,” Eo Kyu-jin from DB Financial Investment said.
“Samsung is predicted to have its best performance ever this year, with annual sales of 318.7 trillion won and an operating profit of 63.9 trillion.”
