A throng of spectators are excited to see ‘the Wall’ Micro-LED TVs, an 292-inch model, on display at CES 2020 held in Las Vegas in early this year. (Photo: Samsung Electronics)

Samsung Electronics posted 52.97 trillion won in sales and 8.15 trillion won in operating profit in the second quarter of this year on a consolidated basis, the company said on July 30.

Memory sales increased on the back of solid demand centered around data centers and PCs, and smartphones and other set product sales declined, so the company saw its Q2 total sales drop 4.3 percent over the previous quarter and fall 5.6 percent over the same period of last year.

Samsung Electronics saw Q2 operating profit of 8.15 trillion won, an increase of 1.7 trillion won over the previous quarter on the back of the improving profitability of the memory segment, one-time income of the display segment and high-season effects of life home appliances despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company saw the rate of operating profit out of sales surge to 15.4 percent. The operating profit and the rate of operating profit both improved on the back of the improving profitability of the memory segment compared to the previous quarter and a good performance of the set business segment.

The set business sector achieved a better-than-forecast performance thanks to a faster-than-expected demand recovery and efficient response using the global supply chain mechanism and retrenchment.

In the case of the semiconductor sector, the memory segment logged an improving business performance thanks to solid demand for data centers and PCs, but NAND bit growth rate declined under the influence of weak mobile demand and insufficient transient availability of some consumer companies.

The system LSI segment underperformed due to sagging mobile demand, but the foundry segment achieved an improving business performance on the back of a partial demand recovery by consumer companies.

As for the display sector, small- and medium-sized panels saw declining sales due to a drop in smartphone demand, but operating profit rose compared to the previous quarters on the back of one-time income, while the large-sized panel segment saw losses decline on the back of rising monitor sales despite declining TV demand.

As for the IT and mobile communications business, the mobile communications segment saw sales of smartphone units decline compared to the previous quarter, but maintain a stable profitability thanks to cost efficiency like saving of marketing expenditures in the wake of the spread of COVID-19.

The consumer electronics business division saw operating profit improve compared to the previous quarter thanks to the improving of mix of air-conditioners, dryers and QLED premium TV sales and operational efficiency.

Despite partial demand recovery in consumer products of Harman International, the company suffered a continued loss amid the declining business of global automakers.

A strong dollar against won during the second quarter had a positive impact on parts businesses, but it was offset by an negative impact on the set business, influenced by weak currency of some major growth markets against won, so the overall impact on operating profit was negligible.