Samsung Group’s headquarters in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. is expected to see its third-quarter operating profit top 10 trillion won (US$8.42 billion) on a recovery in sales of smartphones, TVs and other home appliances, analysts said Tuesday.
If the market forecast becomes a reality, it would mark the first time in two years for Samsung Electronics’ operating profit to surpass the 10 trillion-won mark.
Samsung Electronics, the world’s top smartphone and memory chip manufacturer, is slated to announce its results for the July-September quarter about a month later.
In a research note released Monday, Kim Kyung-min, an analyst at Hana Financial Investment, said there is a growing possibility of Samsung’s third-quarter operating profit surpassing 10 trillion won, estimating the figure at 10.15 trillion won.
Last week, DB Financial Investment Co. forecast Samsung’s operating profit to be far above market estimates, floating a possibility of passing 10 trillion won.
In a report published late last month, KB Securities analyst Kim Dong-won predicted Samsung’s earnings surprise and estimated its third-quarter operating profit at around 10 trillion won.
According to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency, the market consensus of Samsung’s third-quarter operating profit stands at 9.1 trillion won.
Buoyed by a super boom of semiconductors, Samsung’s operating profit hovered above the 10 trillion-won mark for seven straight quarters between the second quarter of 2017 and the fourth quarter of 2018.
Analysts’ optimistic outlooks come amid Samsung’s strong sales of smartphones, TVs and other electronics products in spite of the coronavirus pandemic.
Third-quarter sales of Samsung’s smartphone segment are expected to soar up to 49 percent from three months earlier.
The company’s QLED TV shipments are also projected to jump in the 40 percent range, and Samsung also posted strong sales of other home appliances in July.
In the second quarter, Samsung’s operating profit jumped 23.5 percent on-year to 8.15 trillion won, but sales fell 5.6 percent on-year to 52.97 trillion won. Its net profit reached 5.55 trillion won, up 7.23 percent from a year earlier.
(Yonhap)
