Samsung, gross sales and earnings develop however the duties danger looms on the long run | EUROtoday

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Samsung opens 2025 with a funambolo efficiency: stable, but additionally suspended on a skinny thread fabricated from duties, chips and world challenges. The accounts of the primary quarter of the Big South Korean inform a two -speed story, the place smartphones shine and prepare the semiconductors, in opposition to the background of a business battle with unsure and insidious contours.

Going on the excellent news, these come primarily from the Galaxy S25, the Samsung’s pointed smartphone. Launched in February, he conquered customers because of enhanced capabilities of synthetic intelligence, contributing decisively to +22% of the quarterly internet revenue, which touched 8,223 billion of Won (5.74 billion {dollars}). A efficiency superior to the expectations of analysts, which additionally marks a brand new quarterly turnover file: 79,141 billion gained (+10%).

Well smartphones, however they prepare semiconductors

The cell division generated earnings for 4.3 Won trillions, the very best stage of the final 4 years. A breath of oxygen that has allowed the group to masks at the very least partially the difficulties of its traditionally extra worthwhile space: that of the chips.

The actual Achilles heel of the South Korean large stays the semiconductor enterprise, folded by two converging forces: the slowdown of worldwide demand and the US restrictions on the export of superior chips to China, one of many foremost outlet markets for Samsung. The consequence? The operational revenue of the division collapsed by 62% in comparison with the earlier quarter, stopping at 1.1 Won trillion. A determine removed from the glories of the previous – and from the over 7 trillion recorded in the identical interval by the rival SK Hynix, because of the availability of HBM3E chips in Nvidia.

Geopolitical uncertainty

But the brand new wave of geopolitical uncertainty is formed to shake Samsung’s horizons. The mutual duties threatened (and quickly suspended) by the Trump administration totally have an effect on the corporate’s manufacturing chain, which produces most of its smartphones in Vietnam and a lot of the televisions offered in North America in Mexico. According to analyst Sheng Win Chow, over 90% of the Samsung gadgets supposed for the USA comes from Vietnam, a rustic now beneath tariff risk. The firm has already introduced attainable productive relocations to comprise the influence of duties – a fancy transfer that may take time and investments.