Samsung Electronics announced on the 8th that its provisional performance for the fourth quarter was 75 trillion won in sales and 6.5 trillion won in operating profit.

Fourth quarter results showed a 5% decrease in sales and a nearly 30% decrease in operating profit compared to the previous quarter. Operating profit for the third quarter of 2024 was recorded at KRW 9.1834 trillion.

In a recent report, Korea Investment & Securities estimated Samsung Electronics' operating profit for the fourth quarter at 7.3 trillion won, which is 18% lower than the consensus, but the announced provisional results are about 10% lower than market estimates.

Recently, Micron was selected as the primary memory vendor for the new Galaxy S25 product, and in the CES 2025 keynote speech, Jensen Huang said that Samsung Electronics' HBM quality test is still in progress, so it is assessed that Samsung's DS division is facing a major crisis in its memory leadership.

Detailed business performance is scheduled to be announced through a conference call at the end of January, but some predict that the DS division's operating profit for the fourth quarter will be in the mid-3 trillion won range, a decrease from the previous quarter.

In legacy memory, China's low-price offensive is expanding its market position, and in advanced memory such as HBM and LPDDR5, it is lagging behind SK and Micron and being pursued by China's semiconductor growth. Whether Samsung can overcome this crisis and make a leap forward is drawing attention throughout the year.