Samsung announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2018 with revenues of KRW 60.56 trillion ($56.15 billion), an increase of 20%, compared to KRW 50.55 trillion ($46.87 billion) in Q1 last year. The net profit of Q1 2018 was KRW 11.69 trillion ($10.83 billion), up by 52%, compared to KRW 7.68 trillion ($7.11 billion) in Q1 2017. The increase in profits was driven by the introduction of the new Galaxy S9 duo and Galaxy A8 (2018) smartphones, the thriving DRAM chip market and its OLED panel sales.
In first quarter 2018, Samsung has made significant growth in most of its business segments both on yearly and quarterly basis. The display panel (DP) unit recorded sales of KRW 7.54 trillion ($6.98 billion), up by 3% on a year over year basis but sales declined by 33%, compared to the previous quarter. Samsung’s Device Solution (DS) segment which consist of the semiconductor and memory businesses showed stellar performance in Q1 2018 and the semiconductor business unit’s sales grew to KRW 20.78 trillion ($19.25 billion), an increase of 33% and due to strong demand for server/graphic memory. Market conditions remain favourable and the memory business unit recorded sales of KRW 17.33 trillion, up by 43% on a year over year basis.
For the IT & Mobile (IM) division, the early launch of the Galaxy S9 and solid sales of the Galaxy S8 smartphones resulted in significant growth and the IT business recorded sales of KRW 28.45 trillion ($26.36 billion), an increase of 21%. The mobile communications unit posted sales of KRW 27.66 trillion ($25.63 billion), an increase of 23%.
Consumer Electronics (CE) segment fell slightly in sales on both a YoY and QoQ basis as the company reshaped lineups by removing some mid-range and below products.
