Samsung Electronics reports record-high sales in Q1

An exhibition booth of Samsung Electronics at MWC 2022, which was held in February through March. [NEWS1]

Samsung Electronics reported record-high sales in the first quarter on Thursday, as solid sales of memory chips and home appliances combined with the strong dollar offset mild demand for system chips and sensors.

Sales at the electronics company rose 19 percent to register 77.8 trillion won ($61.4 billion) in the January-March period, the highest in the company's history. Operating profit surged 50.5 percent to 14.1 trillion won during the period, marking the best in almost four years.

The sales record beat the market consensus of 75.6 trillion won tracked by FnGuide while the operating profit is in line with the estimate.

The chip business brought in 8.45 trillion won in operating profit, up 150.7 percent on year. The main driver was dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and NAND flash chips used in servers and PCs.

“The memory business’s performance exceeded market forecasts as the memory price declined less than market expectations thanks to solid demand mainly from server and PC,” the electronics maker said in a statement.

Its Mobile eXperience (MX) business, which covers smartphones and network equipment, generated 3.82 trillion won in operating profit, down 13 percent from a year earlier. The first quarter profit was led by the flagship Galaxy S22 series and other mid-range smartphone models, according to the company.

The consumer electronics division registered 800 billion won in operating profit, down 28.6 percent on year, but the division’s sales achieved an all-time high of 15.5 trillion won.

This shows increased cost for raw materials used in digital devices eats away at profitability.

The company attributed the sales record to rising demand for premium products centering on the Bespoke brand.

Operating profit for the display business surged by 202.8 percent to 1.1 trillion won. Sales of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels for mobile devices drove growth.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]