Samsung posted another record quarter, and it again has its components business to thank for more stellar results.
The Korea tech giant shrugged off scandals, which include a jail sentence for its de facto leader and last year’s Note 7 saga, to record a 14.53 trillion won ($12.92 billion) profit for the recent Q3 2017 period.
Revenue came in at 62.05 trillion won ($55.18 billion), up 30 percent year-on-year and a record for a third quarter, in no small part due to Samsung’s components business, which supplies chips for a range of consumer electronics including smartphones from other firms.
Samsung sells more phones each year than any other company on the planet, but its semiconductor business has traditionally been its best performer and that was once the case in Q3. Overall revenue from the unit was up 51 percent to reach 19.9 trillion won ($17.7 billion), with its profit up close to three-fold to reach 9.96 trillion won, $8.86 billion.
The Samsung mobile business got an increase in overall sales and revenue year-on-year, mainly because of the disastrous Note 7 recall, but it was down on the previous quarter’s metrics. The company put that down to customers favoring mid- and low-end devices with smaller margins.
Looking forward, it said it intends to increase the focus on higher-end devices as we enter the holiday season when demand increases, but “intensifying competition” — i.e. the iPhone X launch — and the rising cost of materials stand out as key challenges.
The company said it expects its financial performance to continue to grow in 2018 “primarily from the component businesses, as conditions in the memory market are likely to remain favorable and the company expects increased sales of flexible OLED panels.”
Samsung also announced three new leaders. The company uses a co-CEO structure that sees the heads of its three core divisions — consumer electronics, IT and mobile communications and device solutions — lead the business and that’s where the new hires, who are all Samsung veterans who have been promoted, will sit.