Samsung 4Q misses expectations

[Anchor]

Samsung Electronics has announced its fourth-quarter performance for last year, which fell short of market expectations.

The poor sales of general-purpose memory semiconductors seem to have had a significant impact.

The company is also in a situation where it needs to achieve results in the growing high-performance high-bandwidth memory (HBM) sector.

Reporter Kim Chae-rin has the details.

[Report]

Samsung Electronics reported a provisional operating profit of 6.5 trillion won for the fourth quarter of last year.

This is a 29% decrease compared to the previous quarter's operating profit.

It is also more than 15% lower than the market average forecast of 7.7 trillion won.

The poor performance of its core general-purpose memory semiconductors was cited as the main reason.

The price of general-purpose DRAM for PCs, which exceeded 2 dollars in July last year, fell to the low 1 dollar range by November.

The global sales slump of IT products such as computers and smartphones that use DRAM was significantly influenced by China's aggressive supply strategy.

The foundry sector, which produces semiconductors on a contract basis, also could not escape the downturn.

[Park Yoo-ak/Researcher, Kiwoom Securities: "In the foundry sector, the operating rate has dropped significantly, and it seems that the related costs turned out to be larger than expected...."]

Despite the surge in demand for high-performance high-bandwidth memory (HBM) driven by the AI boom, results have fallen short.

NVIDIA, the largest customer for HBM, has not approved Samsung Electronics' quality verification process for over ten months, while SK Hynix and Micron have passed.

Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, mentioned at a meeting held during the CES exhibition that Samsung "needs to redesign HBM," but also stated, "Samsung is working quickly and will ultimately succeed."

As the focus of semiconductors rapidly shifts towards AI chips, proving HBM supply capability is seen as a key factor for Samsung Electronics' long-term performance improvement.

This is KBS News, Kim Chae-rin.