Beats Semiconductor Business Division for 1st Time in 5 Years
Samsung Electronics' smartphone business division has emerged again as the company's most profitable business unit in 19 quarters. The consumer electronics (CE) division also served as a key profit maker by logging the second highest-ever quarterly operating profit since 2013.
Samsung Electronics announced its first-quarter business results through a conference call on April 29. The company posted 65.39 trillion won in sales and 9.38 trillion won in operating profit in the first quarter. Compared to the same period of 2020, its sales and operating profit spiked 18.19 percent and 45.53 percent, respectively. In particular, the company posted the highest-ever sales for the first quarter, which were close to the highest quarterly sales of 66.96 trillion recorded in the third quarter of 2020.
The IM business division in charge of smartphones chalked up the best performance in sales (29.21 trillion won) and operating profit (4.39 trillion won) among all business divisions. It was the first time in more than five years that the division ranked first in operating profit.
Samsung Electronics' semiconductor sales stood at 19.01 trillion won, an acceptable level, but its operating profit fell 0.63 percent on year to 3.37 trillion won. A snow storm forced its Austin foundry plant in Texas to stop operations in February, which adversely affected its chip business results. The plant suffered damage of between 300 billion won and 400 billion won as it could not process 71,000 semiconductor wafers during the lockdown. Another factor was an increase in facility investment costs for process improvement at Pyeongtaek Plant (P2) in Gyeonggi Province, Korea.
Samsung Electronics is planning to completely normalize its Austin plant in the second quarter and start volume production at the second foundry line of Pyeongtaek Plant, expanding supply in the second half of this year.