SAMSUNG's 3RD-QUARTER PROFITS FALL 44%

[Anonymous]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVykcNWPwINt3doNn6TFrocnaGqwD940S5U83
Samsung 3rd-quarter profit falls 44 percent
SEOUL,
South Korea — Samsung Electronics Co. said Friday its third-quarter
profit fell 44.4 percent, citing the global economic downturn and lower
prices for its mainstay semiconductors and flat screens. Its shares
tumbled 14 percent.Samsung is the world’s biggest manufacturer of
memory chips, liquid crystal displays and flat screen televisions. It
ranks second behind Finland’s Nokia Corp. in mobile phones.Samsung and
its competitors have struggled with falling prices amid an oversupply
of chips.The Suwon, South Korea-based company said it earned 1.22
trillion won ($869 million) in the three months ending Sept. 30, down
from 2.19 trillion won a year ago.

Despite lower prices on some
products, its overall sales rose 15.4 percent to 19.3 trillion won
($13.7 billion) from 16.7 trillion won a year earlier.”Overall, our
third-quarter earnings were impacted by the worsening market conditions
resulting from the slowdown in the global economy,” Samsung executive
vice president Chu Woo-sik told analysts on a conference
call.”Moreover, our DRAM, NAND and LCD businesses all faced steep price
declines led by persistent oversupply in the industry,” Chu added.DRAM,
or dynamic random access memory, chips are used mostly in personal
computers. NAND flash memory chips are used in digital devices such as
cameras and music players.Chu said prices for NAND chips fell 35
percent from the second quarter while those for DRAM declined 17
percent.

In a statement, Samsung said that despite the sharp
price drops for chips, its semiconductor business still made money,
“making Samsung the only major player in the memory industry worldwide
that remains profitable in a significant industry downturn.”A bright
spot for Samsung continued to be mobile phones.The company said it sold
51.8 million handsets in the period, a quarterly record.Samsung said it
expects to sell 200 million handsets for all of 2008.

Samsung
announced Wednesday it had withdrawn a $26 a share bid to acquire U.S.
flash memory card maker SanDisk Corp., but suggested it was still
interested in buying the Milpitas, Calif.-based company at a lower
price.Shares in Samsung, which released earnings results shortly after
the stock market opened, plunged 14 percent to close at 407,500 won
($286), punctuating a four-day decline in which the stock price fell
21.8 percent.The decline came amid a sell-off in the broader Korean
Stock Price Index, which this week dropped 20.5 percent — the biggest
weekly decline since records began to be kept in 1987.

[Author]

October 27, 2008 at 10:05 AM