这一结果虽较上年同期增长131%，但较第三季度下降29%。① On Wednesday (January 8), Samsung Electronics announced that its fourth-quarter sales and operating profit both fell short of expectations; ② Contributing factors include: lagging in AI Chip, rising R&D costs, slowing demand for traditional storage chips, setbacks in non-storage chip Business, and declining mobile device revenue; ③ NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang expressed confidence that Samsung is working hard to design new HBM chips and can overcome the challenges it faces.
Cailian Press reported on January 8 (Editor Zhou Ziyi) that Samsung Electronics announced its fourth-quarter operating profit forecast on Wednesday (January 8), which is far below Analysts' expectations, mainly due to its continued lag in high-end chip supply.
The world's largest manufacturer of storage chips, Smart Phones, and Television announced on Wednesday that preliminary data shows that in the three months ending December 31 of last year, Samsung Electronics' fourth-quarter sales were 75 trillion won (approximately 51.46 billion USD), estimated at 77.46 trillion won; operating profit was 6.5 trillion won (approximately 4.47 billion USD), while Analysts had projected an operating profit of 7.7 trillion won.
Although this result represents a 131% increase compared to the same period last year, it is a 29% decrease compared to the third quarter.
Many factors contributed to the poor performance.
Lagging in the AI Chip sector is a significant reason for the unsatisfactory quarterly results. It is reported that the company lags behind competitors SK Hynix and Micron Technology in supplying high-end chips to NVIDIA, as Samsung failed to obtain NVIDIA’s certification in time, resulting in a reduced market share in high-bandwidth memory (HBM).
This has also led to an increase in R&D costs, as Samsung significantly increases its investment in advanced chip manufacturing capabilities to catch up with the rapidly growing AI market.
As for traditional storage chips, the demand for traditional storage chips used in personal computers and mobile phones is facing a slowdown, which has also affected the revenue from storage chips in the fourth quarter.
The non-memory chip Business (covering contract chip manufacturing and logic chip design) has also dragged down Samsung's performance due to the decline in factory utilization and the increase in R&D costs.
In addition, the revenues from the device Business, including Smart Phones, Television, and home appliances, decreased mainly due to the weakening impact of new Smart Phone sales and intensified competition.
Postponed again and again.
In October 2024, this South Korean company rarely apologized for its disappointing third-quarter performance, stating that it is making progress in supplying AI Chips to NVIDIA.
However, Analysts indicated that the company has not provided any updates since then, and the delay in supplying high-end chips to NVIDIA continues to pressure its operating profit.
In Samsung Electronics' quarterly report on Wednesday, there was also no mention of the latest progress in supplying HBM to NVIDIA.
However, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang mentioned this at the CES conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday (January 7), stating that Samsung must "design a new design" to provide HBM Chips to NVIDIA, and added that "they can do it, and they work fast." This statement reflects Huang's confidence that Samsung will overcome these challenges.
