Samsung Announces Record Profit of $7.4 Billion in Q3

The patent verdict and recent acquisitions for patent infringement does not seem to have impact on the sales of Galaxy models. Samsung’s impressive quarterly results reflect the strong performance resulting in $7.4 billion operating profit for Q3 2012. The figure looks much impressive especially with their memory chip business going to an all time low during this period. 

However, industry sources predict tougher times for the company ahead. They have indicated that the company could see their profit coming down 73% to around 16% next year. A decline in sales turnover is also expected due to the slowdown in TV and high end smartphone markets. Analysts are of the opinion that it would be difficult for Samsung to maintain high profits from the smartphone market as the competition is intensifying and market is getting crowded.

IDC, a leading research and analysis firm reported that Samsung sold around 56 million smartphones during Q3 2012, which is double the number of units sold by rival Apple. Samsung has now a market share of 31% in the global smartphone market.

Samsung has shows strong performance in segments like tablets, TV and microprocessor chips, however analysts still seem these segments not matured enough to be big profit makers for Samsung like the Galaxy smartphone segment. Galaxy s3 shipment reached a staggering 18 to 20 million during July-September quarter.

In the tablet segment, however Apple has maintained a strong lead over Samsung. The company is planning to narrow this gap in tablet segment with a new product line Ativ tablets in the Windows tablets segment. 

Though Samsung has lost their biggest client Apple, the display unit division still generated a profit of 1.1 trillion won. Analyst expected more opportunities for Samsung in this segment as more and more electronics players are getting into the business of tablets and ultrabooks.

It remains to be seen how Samsung will prepare to manage the challenges coming up in smartphones, tablet, chips and display business in the years to come.