Samsung's 2023 profit drops 85 percent, bleeding $11B from chip business

Samsung Electronics reports its 2023 earnings. [NEWS1]

Samsung Electronics recorded an 84.9 percent yearly decline in operating profit last year with the losses from its semiconductor business amounting to nearly 15 trillion won ($11.3 billion).

The Suwon, Gyeonggi-based tech giant announced Wednesday that it posted an operating profit of 6.6 trillion won in 2023, its lowest number since 2008 and below the market consensus of 7.5 trillion won.

Its sales came in at 259 trillion won, down 14.3 percent from over a year ago.

In the fourth quarter, it logged 2.8 trillion won in operating profit, a 34.4 percent drop from a year before, according to its earnings announced Wednesday.

Its profit missed the market expectation of 3.7 trillion won, compiled by market tracker FnGuide.

By division, its semiconductor business reported 2.2 trillion won of losses as it is yet to recover from the severe market downturn from last year. The company said its dynamic random-access memory business, however, turned to profit in the fourth quarter on the back of inventory reduction from production cut.

Its smartphone and network equipment sector posted 2.7 trillion won of operating profit, a 0.98 percent year-on-year jump.

Samsung-owned Harman reported 340 billion won of operating profit, a 0.02 percent year-on-year drop.

Its fourth quarter revenue came at 67.8 trillion won, a 3.8 percent year-on-year drop.

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]