Samsung's record profit in the third quarter, but phones are weak

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PHOTO FILE: A man leaves Samsung Electronics headquarters in Seoul on January 6, 2014. REUTERS / Kim Hong-Ji

The good news for Samsung is another record profit. The bad news is that the outlook is weak.

Record profit was boosted by third-quarter memory chip and monitor sales.

The world's largest maker of smartphones and semiconductors reported net profit of 13.15 billion South Korean won ($ 11.5 billion) in the third quarter, an all-time high and an 18% gain over to 11.19 billion won a year ago, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

The business turnover of the South Korean-based company rose 5.5 percent to 65.5 billion won, up from 62 billion a year earlier. Operating profit reached 17.57 billion won, up 21%.

The previous record net profit of the company was 12,266 billion won in the last three months of 2017.
Samsung, which markets one in five smartphones worldwide, has announced a 10% decline in the mobile division 's revenue.

The profits of its mobile division have been reduced by a third.
Samsung said that smartphone shipments were flat.

There are more and more signs that the memory chip boom may be cooling down.
Prices for DRAM chips, which offer multitasking speed to devices, could drop 5% in the last three months of 2018 compared to the previous quarter. This would be the first drop for over two years, according to DRAMeXchange.

Prices for another type of memory chip, the NAND, are already down and could lose another 25% to 30% next year, said DRAMeXchange.

Samsung is the largest manufacturer of DRAM and NAND chips.