The market was expecting Samsung to forecast an almost 50 percent increase in profit for Q1 2018 when it released its earnings guidance earlier this month. It even beat market expectations in the forecast when the company predicted a 57.6 percent surge in profit for the January-March 2018 period compared to the first quarter of last year.
The full Samsung Q1 2018 earnings have been posted today. Samsung's operating profit hiked 58.03 percent to 15.64 trillion won or $14.49 billion in the first quarter of this year. It has posted 11.7 trillion won or $10.8 billion in net profit which is a 52 percent increase from Q1 2017. Sales surged nearly 20 percent year-over-year to hit 60.5 trillion won or just over $56 billion.
Samsung Q1 2018 earnings
Samsung's semiconductor business has been behind the stellar performance of the company in recent quarters and it's the same story in Q1 2018 as well. The company acknowledges in its earnings release that its memory business primarily led its first quarter revenue. It also mentions that increased sales of its flagship smartphones such as the Galaxy S9 also made a significant contribution.
Demand for memory chipsets was high in the quarter which led to higher revenues for the company as well as the early global launch of the Galaxy S9. Samsung has reaped the rewards of quickly rolling out its latest flagship smartphone in most markets across the globe soon after the launch.
Amid reports that Apple had cut OLED panel orders to Samsung, the company says that its Display Panel division had its profits affected by slow demand for flexible OLED panels and competitors' increased production in the LCD market.
Samsung now expects the semiconductor division to maintain its performance in the second quarter but cautions that generating overall earnings growth across the various divisions is going to be a challenge because of the hurdles in the Display Panel segment as well as a decline in profitability for the mobile division particularly due to more competition in the high-end segment of the market.
