Samsung Electronics Q4 profit jumps on server chip demand, foundry margins

[SEOUL] Samsung Electronics on Friday (Jan 7) said its October to December operating profit likely jumped 52 per cent on year to its highest fourth-quarter profit in 4 years, helped by solid demand for server memory chips and higher margins in chip contract manufacturing.

The world's largest memory chip and smartphone maker estimated fourth-quarter profit at 13.8 trillion won (S$15.6 billion).

This missed a Refinitiv SmartEstimate of 15.2 trillion won, which analysts attributed to costs such as employees' bonuses, marketing costs for its mobile business and ramp-up costs for new display panels being reflected in the quarter.

Revenue likely rose 23 per cent from the same period a year earlier to 76 trillion won, Samsung said in a short preliminary earnings release.

It is due to release detailed earnings later this month.

Although prices of memory chips dipped during the quarter, increased demand from server clients has lifted Samsung's quarter-on-quarter shipments of both DRAM chips, widely used in data centres, and NAND flash memory chips, used for data storage in tech devices, analysts said.

REUTERS