Samsung Electronics said Tuesday its profit for the last quarter plummeted nearly 70% as a weak global economy depressed demand for its consumer electronics products and computer memory chips.
The company's operating profit of 4.3 trillion won ($3.5 billion) for the three months through December fell 69% from a year earlier, representing its lowest quarterly profit since the third quarter of 2014. Revenue fell 8% to 70.46 trillion won ($57.2 billion).
The South Korean tech giant thrived through the first two years of the pandemic thanks to its dual strengths in parts and finished products, benefiting from robust demand for PCs, TVs and chips powering computer servers as the virus forced millions to work at home.
But it has been harder for the company to weather the economic shock unleashed by Russia's war on Ukraine, which disrupted industrial supply chains and left major economies grappling with higher inflation and slower growth.
"The business environment deteriorated significantly in the fourth quarter due to weak demand amid a global economic slowdown," Samsung said in a statement.
The company's profit from its bread-and-butter semiconductor business came to 270 billion won ($219 million) for the last quarter, down significantly from the 8.83 trillion won ($7.1 billion) it got a year earlier.
Samsung said chip prices fell sharply amid weakened demand as clients adjusted their inventories in face of "deepening uncertainties" in the global economy, a problem the company says will likely extend into the first quarter of 2023.
Samsung also expects demand for its smartphones and TVs to fall further in the first quarter amid the global economic downturn.
Samsung's share price fell 3.5% on Tuesday.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More