Last week a report out of Korea brought us predictions from market analysts who claimed that Samsung could have a better first quarter than previously expected due to the stellar performance of the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge. The mood appears to have changed over the past few days as the latest reports out of Korea suggest that another bad quarter might be in the offing for Samsung.
According to one report, Samsung's sales in China continue to fall, they were reportedly down to 30.98 trillion won last year which is a 6.17 percent decline over the previous year as Samsung made sales of 40.15 trillion won in China in 2013. In the past two years, the company's sales in China have declined by 22.8 percent, higher than its overall sales decline of 12.3 percent during the same period of time. The other suggests that Samsung Display's losses are likely going to be more than expected. It was previously believed that the display arm's loss would come in at around $174 million, it's now believed that the loss might be as high as $521 million due to reduced prices for LCD panels and poor sales.
The only good news from the previous quarter might be the stellar performance of the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge but it seems a bit unfair to rely on new flagships smartphones to improve the whole quarter for the entire company. Bear in mind that Samsung is yet to give its official earnings guidance for Q1 2016 so take all of this with a grain of salt for now. The official guidance will be released later this week.