SEOUL, October 24 – South Korea\’s Samsung Electronics, the world\’s largest memory chip maker, on Friday reported a 44 percent fall in third-quarter net profit amid the global economic downturn.
Net profit was 1.22 trillion won (873.3 million dollars) in July-September compared to 2.19 trillion won a year earlier, the company said in a statement.
Sales rose 15.4 percent year-on-year to 19.2 trillion won but operating profit tumbled 51 percent to 1.02 trillion won.
Profit from Samsung\’s semiconductor division slumped 74 percent to 240 billion won on sales of 4.78 trillion won.
Samsung, also the world\’s largest maker of liquid crystal display screens, said profit margins for its LCD business fell to 8 percent from 21 percent in the second quarter due to a global oversupply.
The company, the world\’s second-biggest mobile phone maker, sold 51.8 million mobile phones in the third quarter compared with 45.7 million in the second.
Profit margins in the handset division, however, fell to 7 percent in July from 13 percent in the previous quarter.
"The market environment in the third quarter proved challenging amid rising costs and a downturn in the global economy," Chu Woo-Sik, Samsung\’s senior executive in charge of investor relations, said in the statement.
"We foresee the coming months to be an even more challenging period."
"Nevertheless, our strategy of creating differentiated product portfolios has protected Samsung from significant disruptions in revenues, and enabled the company to outperform market expectations."
