Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported a second-quarter operating profit of 4.7 trillion Korean won, missing expectations, weighed by a 93.8% profit slump in its chip business.
While Samsung's second-quarter operating profit beat its own forecast of around 4.6 trillion won, it was a steep drop from the 10.44 trillion won recorded in the same period last year.
The South Korean technology giant posted a quarterly revenue of 74.6 trillion won, up slightly from 74.07 trillion won a year earlier and beating its forecast of 74 trillion won.
Here are Samsung's second-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimate, which is weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:
Revenue : 74.6 trillion won ($53.5 billion) vs. 74.43 trillion won
: 74.6 trillion won ($53.5 billion) vs. 74.43 trillion won Operating profit: 4.7 trillion won vs. 5.33 trillion won
Shares of Samsung fell by as much as 1.79% in early trading.
Notably, its Device Solutions division, which encompasses its memory chip, semiconductor design and foundry business units, recorded a 93.8% drop in operating profit year over year.
Samsung Electronics' chip business posted an operating profit of 400 billion won in the second quarter, plunging from 6.45 trillion won in the same period last year. Chip revenue fell to 27.9 trillion won, from 28.56 trillion won last year.
"Inventory value adjustments in memory and one-off costs related to the impacts of export restrictions related to China in non-memory had an adverse effect on profit," the company said in a statement.
However, speaking in an earnings call, Samsung's chief financial officer Soon-cheol Park voiced some optimism for the company in the near term.
"Despite ongoing global economic concerns driven by uncertain trade policies and geopolitical tensions, the IT industry appears poised for a gradual recovery fueled by increasing momentum in AI and robotics," he said.
"In this context, we anticipate a rebound in our performance in the second half, following a bottoming out in the second quarter, with the earnings expected to improve steadily as the year progresses," he added.