Samsung Electronics stands on the top of the world in the electronics industry.
Last year, Samsung Electronics Co. became the world's biggest electronics company by recording the highest-ever sales in 2009. In January, Samsung Electronics announced sales of 39.24 trillion won and operating profits of 3.7 trillion won in the fourth quarter of 2009. As a result, the electronic giant posted 136.29 trillion won in sales and 10.92 trillion won in operating profits in 2009.
Samsung Electronics' sales in 2009 (US$117 billion) surpassed Siemens of Germany (US$109.8 billion) and Hewlett Packard (US$114.6 billion). The 2009 sales and operating profits of Samsung Electronics rose 15.1% and 91.2%, respectively. Its sales in the fourth quarter rose 9.4% from the third quarter, however, operating profits fell due to an increase in marketing costs.
Therefore, Samsung Electronics became the first Korean company to ink 100 trillion won in sales and 10 trillion won in operating profits. Even though Samsung Electronics broke the wall of 10 trillion won in operating profits in 2004, its sales stood at 81.96 trillion won at that time. In 2008, its sales surpassed 100 trillion won to reach 121.29 trillion won, but its operating profits stayed at 6.3 trillion won thereby failing to reach the financial milestone.
Samsung Electronics posted balanced scorecards in its four major business divisions; semiconductors, LCDs, telecommunications, and digital media while also overcoming the global economic slump. Samsung's semiconductor business recovered to more than one trillion won in operating profits in the third quarter of last year. Samsung's semiconductor business posted 1.7 trillion won in profits in the fourth quarter thanks to a rise in both the demand for and prices of DRAMs and nand memories.
In addition, the company set a record by surpassing four trillion won in sales in the Information and Telecommunication Sector thanks to strong sales (66.8 million units) of wireless handsets, the highest ever in a quarter. The Digital Media Sector stayed on the top of the world for four straight years thanks to handsome sales of LED TVs and LCD TVs.
In the third quarter, sales of flat TVs surpassed 10 million units, a whopping 41% increase from the year before. Thanks to this brilliant performance, its annual operating profits reached 2.85 trillion won for the first time. Its LCD Business Division inked 1.38 trillion won in sales thanks to strong sales in advanced countries. Therefore, Samsung Electronics recorded more than one billion won in sales in their four major business sectors.
Samsung Electronics predicted that its business performance in the first quarter will be better than that of the last year thanks to continued high memory prices, a seasonal decrease in marketing costs and a boom in the air conditioner business. “This year, a strong Korean won will be another major factor. However, we aim at double-digit growth due to price competitiveness and strong market power,” said a spokesperson at Samsung. On the other hand, Samsung Electronics has revealed that the company plans to invest 5.5 trillion won in the memory sector while investing more than three trillion won in the LCD sector. The company is also considering additional investments for new 30 nano-class processes.