Samsung hopeful of chip recovery as Q2 net falls 56%

Samsung Electronics said it expected the chip market to bottom out and start to recover in the second half as it posted a 56 per cent drop in quarterly profit on Wednesday, hit by declines in semiconductor prices amid oversupply.

“Server demand is expected to increase gradually as customers adjust their inventory levels and resume purchasing, while PC demand is also likely to expand,” the South Korean tech giant said, referring to demand for its DRAM chips.

Samsung however said it faced “persistent” uncertainties in the memory and mobile businesses in the second half.

The chip business was still Samsung’s top earner but it reported a steep fall of 71 per cent to 3.4 trillion won operating profit, from 11.6 trillion won in the same period a year ago.