January 8, 2025 – Samsung Electronics has recently released its provisional performance results for the fourth quarter of 2024, revealing a 130.5% year-on-year increase in operating profit to 6.50 trillion Korean won, although this figure fell short of market expectations of 8.96 trillion won.
When Samsung announced its third-quarter results last year, industry analysts had widely predicted that the fourth-quarter operating profit would reach approximately 10 trillion won. However, these forecasts were repeatedly revised downwards due to the impact of the memory market, with recent estimates dropping to around 7 trillion won.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, Samsung Electronics reported sales of 75 trillion won, representing a 10.7% increase compared to the same period last year. However, this also missed market predictions of 77.46 trillion won. Compared to the previous quarter, Samsung’s Q4 sales decreased by 5.18%, while operating profit declined by 29.19%.
Samsung Electronics attributed the decline in sales and profit to the deterioration of business conditions centered around IT products, which led to a decrease in sales and profits in the DS division.
Despite achieving record-high memory sales in the fourth quarter, Samsung’s memory business saw a profit decline due to increased research and development expenses and the initial costs associated with expanding front-end production capacity.
On the non-memory side, weak demand in key applications such as mobile devices, coupled with decreased utilization and escalating R&D costs, impacted performance.
Additionally, the DX division, responsible for product business, experienced a decline in performance due to the underwhelming launch of new mobile products and intensified competition among suppliers.
For the full year 2024, Samsung Electronics achieved sales exceeding 300 trillion won for the second consecutive year, reaching 300.8 trillion won, a year-on-year increase of 15.9%. Operating profit for the same period surged 398.2% to 32.73 trillion won.
