January debut of smartphones boosts Samsung’s profits by 44%

South Korean company Samsung Electronics released preliminary financial results for the first quarter, reporting a 44% increase in net income over the same period last year. According to third-party experts, revenue grew by 17%, driven by strong sales of smartphones and television technology.

In dollar terms, Samsung Electronics’ profit in the first quarter rose to $ 8.3 billion, with revenues of $ 58.2 billion. The company does not yet provide statistics on sectors, planning to provide a more detailed financial report by the end of this month. According to forecastsCounterpoint Research, Samsung’s mobile division increased its quarterly profit by more than a third, thanks to a strong launch of the flagship Galaxy S21 smartphone line. According to experts, in the first six weeks of their presence on the market, they surpassed their predecessors in popularity twice. Strong demand for the new models has been fueled by a $ 200 price reduction over the Galaxy S20 line. According to analysts at Eugene Investment & Securities, in the first quarter, Samsung managed to increase smartphones by 25% to 76 million units compared with the fourth quarter of last year.

In the segment of television and home appliances, according to representatives of Counterpoint Research, Samsung Electronics’ profits more than doubled as demand for televisions remains high due to continued epidemiological restrictions. The profit of Samsung’s semiconductor component business was down 20% to $ 3.2 billion due to American plants’ downtime in Texas. But in the second half of the year, revenue is expected to rise due to the appearance on the market of new types of DDR5 memory. In the last quarter, memory prices also grew, but this did not compensate for the losses from the February natural disasters. Already in the second quarter, Samsung’s revenue from the sale of semiconductor components should return to growth.