Samsung reports best net income growth since 2010
The world’s largest maker of memory and smartphones, Samsung, posted a six-fold rise in net income to 9.64 trillion won ($6.96 billion) Q2, well ahead of outpacing analysts expectations.
Its best-performing division was the semiconductor unit, which earned 6.45 trillion won in operating profit on rising memory prices and healthy demand for high-bandwidth memory chips. Sales of HBM chips, which power AI applications, rose more than 50% from the previous quarter even though Samsung lags behind SK Hynix in this space.
HBM is a hugely important market, and it seems that Samsung's prospects are improving here. It has won approval from Nvidia for a version of its HBM3 chips, and it is has high hopes of for its next-gen HBM3E chips, which will ship soon.
In a statement, Samsung said: “In the second half of 2024, AI servers are expected to take up a larger portion of the (memory) market as major cloud service providers and enterprises expand their AI investments.”
Samsung’s other financial results were similarly buoyant. Revenue for the quarter ended June jumped 23.42% from a year earlier, while operating profit soared 1,458.2%. Here are Samsung’s second-quarter results versus analysts’ average estimates.
- Samsung revenue: 74.07 trillion Korean won (about USD 53.45 billion) vs. 73.74 trillion Korean won
- Samsung operating profit: 10.44 trillion Korean won vs 9.53 trillion Korean won
The firm performed less well in smartphones. Sales declined in Q2 largely of the “base effect of launches of new models” in Q1. However, the Galaxy S24 series continued to see strong demand, Samsung said.
