It was only in the most recent quarter that Samsung showed considerable improvement, over the past few quarters the company's cash cow has largely been its semiconductor business, but capital market analysts now predict that the good run this business has had might be nearing its end. Samsung Electronics is now predicted to post 6 trillion won ($5.1 billion) in operating profit in the fourth quarter largely due to a noticeable drop in semiconductor sales, the figure is short of previous market forecasts.
It was previously claimed that Samsung's operating profit for the fourth quarter will stand at 6.95 trillion won ($5.9 billion), the new forecast is down some 500 billion won ($424.63 million) from the average forecast of 6.74 trillion won ($5.73 billion). Several securities firm now have similar expectations, these include Samsung Securities Co., Mirae Asset Securities Co., Kyobo Securities Co., among others. Samsung doesn't usually comment on analyst predictions about its numbers so it's unlikely to respond to this, but nevertheless it's going to be worrying for investors, who have already seen Samsung stock shed quite a bit of its value over the past 12 months.