The Korean firm has just published its earnings guidance for Q3 2021 and the numbers are staggering. It is expecting to make a record 73 trillion won (around $61 billion) in consolidated sales during the period between July to September 2021. This is the company’s highest-ever quarterly revenue. Samsung is also expecting an operating profit of around 15.8 trillion won (around $13 billion) this past quarter. The number marks the best quarterly profit for the company since it posted a profit of more than 17.5 trillion won (around $15 billion) in Q3 2018. This time last year, Samsung had reported an operating profit of 12.35 trillion won. So it is expecting a strong 28 percent year-on-year (YoY) growth in profit in Q3 2021. Consolidated sales revenue came in at 66.96 trillion won back then. Looking at quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth, Samsung posted 63.67 trillion won in revenue and 12.57 trillion won in operating profit during Q2 2021. That’s 15 percent and 26 percent QoQ growth in revenue and profit respectively over the past three months.
The semiconductor division is raking in the cash for Samsung
Samsung’s earnings guidance expectedly doesn’t reveal where it’s making the most profit, but it’s fairly obvious that the semiconductor division has been raking in the cash cow for the company recently. The semiconductor industry is facing a global shortage of chips. There’s a huge gap between demand and supply. And this has effectively taken the prices of semiconductor chips up. Samsung, being one of the very few semiconductor manufacturing companies out there, has benefitted from this. The Korean firm’s mobile division, meanwhile, has been struggling recently. It has lost its crown as the world’s largest smartphone vendor to Xiaomi. The chip shortage issue has also forced it to cancel or delay some strategically important devices, including the Galaxy Note series and the Galaxy S21 FE. But the launch of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 foldables in August has given the company a much-needed boost. The devices, Flip 3 in particular, have been in high demand since the pre-order days and they are still selling pretty well. So we might see Samsung’s mobile division somewhat return to form this past quarter. Samsung is expected to reveal the final, audited sales numbers for Q3 2021 later this month. It will be interesting to see how much of a boost the new foldables have given to the company’s mobile division.
