Samsung had a stellar year in 2017 as far as profits go but it appears that the company might find it a bit difficult to maintain momentum in the new year. According to a new report, Samsung's Q1 2018 operating profit is expected to fall slightly compared to the previous quarter. The company posted $14.10 billion in operating profit for the quarter ending December 2017.
Samsung Q1 2018 operating profit
Market analysts based in South Korea predict that Samsung's operating profit is going to slightly fall by 4.8 percent in the January-March quarter compared to the preceding quarter.
The company might see lower profits due to its display division. A recent report has already suggested that Samsung itself expects to make less money from OLED panel sales this year because the OLED boom that it was relying on hasn't happened yet.
There have also been reports recently that Samsung will ship half the units planned of the iPhone X's OLED display to Apple because its rival's flagship smartphone hasn't sold as well as the company might have hoped. Samsung will surely take a hit on its revenues if there is truth to reports of Apple cutting down iPhone X production in response to slow demand.
While it's expected to be a tough quarter for Samsung's display division, the company's mobile and semiconductor divisions are expected to do the heavy lifting this quarter. Prices for DRAM chips continue to rise and Samsung's position of dominance in this market enables it to take full advantage of that. Samsung's mobile division is expected to post a 21 percent surge in operating profit for this quarter on the back of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+.
The company hasn't released its official earnings guidance for the quarter just yet and probably won't do so for a couple of weeks so we'll have to wait for that to be absolutely sure of just how well its various business divisions have fared in the first quarter of the new year.
