Just like in recent years, the chip division again proved to be the largest contributor to this record figure: a profit of approximately 10.6 billion euros with a turnover of 19.3 billion euros.
The mobile branch of Samsung was in the third quarter of 2018 an equally high turnover, although the profit here was stuck on ‘only’ 1.7 billion euros. This was mainly due to higher marketing costs and lower sales in the lower and middle segments.
Competition on the mobile market is becoming more intense; more and more manufacturers are introducing telephones in the highest segment. Therefore, Samsung can not rest on its laurels and with high sales numbers of its premium phones, the lower performance in the lower segment compensate.
The Korean company has therefore indicated to expand its portfolio in 2019 with foldable and 5G phones and to focus more on millenniums in the low and middle segments. The first foldable phone may be announced this month, larger foldable screens would follow later.
In order to give an impulse to its OLED activities, the Korean company also plans to offer flexible and foldable displays for cars and larger devices such as laptops in 2019. That seems a sensible strategy: the demand for flexible screens from Samsung is rising, which in Q3 from this year resulted in a higher operating profit in the OLED segment of the display division.
Samsung takes into account a price drop for NAND memory chips. To ensure that the chip department continues to do well, the company plans to make its SoCs more competitive by using 5G modem technology. Samsung also wants to expand its product range with 3D sensors, fingerprint-on-display sensors and chips for applications in cars and the internet of things.
