5 hours Ago By David Richards
Days after Samsung Electronics, released their latest premium smartphones the Company has said that they are confident that they can deliver double-digit growth rate with their new flagship Galaxy smartphone range despite poor profits in 2024. The South Korean Company that sold 224 million units of smartphones, and 28 million tablet PCs in 2024, were not as confident about their TV or appliance sales which are under pressure from Chinese TV brands with heavy discounting taking a toll on the Company. Over the weekend Samsung admitted that operating profit at its smartphone division fell 25% from the previous quarter while profits at its television division dropped 60%.
The Company also reported weaker-than-expected chip earnings in 2024 despite record sales, as it struggled to keep up in the AI chip race amid plunging legacy product prices with the Company admitting that they used the new Qualcomm processor in their new Galaxy S25 series the company does plan to adopt their flagship Exynos 2500 chip in the upcoming Galaxy series expected to roll out in the second half of this year, among this range will be a new Flip and Fold model smartphone. With processor battles unfolding due to the roll out of AI software that needs enhanced processing Samsung said it achieved all-time high semiconductor sales US$76.4 billion in 2024.
Disappointing was the fall in profits which short of market expectations with the Company being out performed by arch rival SK Hynix which delivered a profit. Overall, the business spanning smartphones appliances TVs and semiconductors, delivered A330.99 billion dollars in revenue in 2024 that was the second highest, trailing only its record in 2022.
After slashing headcount at multiple Samsung subsidiaries around the world the Company Park Soon-cheol, the chief financial officer and executive vice president said in a rare statement “The management and all the employees are very aware of the challenges that the company is facing, and we are fully committed to overcoming the current difficulties,” “Samsung’s business portfolio spans a diverse range of industries that operate within different business cycles and market dynamics, which cause fluctuations in our company’s performance. We are confident that this diversity along with the progress being made in our businesses will drive gradual recovery,” Park said. What the business is punting on is the roll out of new processors including an enhanced model of HBM3E from April of this year.
This is a fifth-generation high bandwidth memory chip, a stacked DRAM chip used as a key component for enhancing AI processes for graphic processing units. Nvidia has already committed to the new processor. Kim Jae-june, the executive vice president in charge of the memory chip business said during their recent financial briefing “We started mass producing 8-layer and 12-layer HBM3E chips and expanded supply to multiple GPU makers and data centre clients in the fourth quarter of last year with HBM3E processors already surpassing that of HBM3,” The company said it is also preparing to start mass production of the next-generation HBM4 using a leading-edge 1c-nanometer process node in the second half of this year.
Ramping up production of the upcoming models, Samsung said it aims to double its total HBM bit supply in 2025, compared to last year. The chipmaker has yet to finalize its capital expenditure plan for 2025. But it said it expects to allocate a similar budget for the memory chip business as last year.
Its facility investment stood at 53.6 trillion won in 2024, with 46.3 trillion won allocated to semiconductors and 4.
8 trillion won to displays. The company reduced investment in its foundry business. Regarding potential impacts of policy shifts under US President Donald Trump, who recently kicked off his second term, Samsung said it is closely monitoring the policy-making processes and assessing business impacts to come up with appropriate responses.
“We will leverage our global production capabilities, supply chain management expertise, AI-driven product edge and diverse business portfolio to navigate risks and changes brought by the Trump administration,” the company said..
