Samsung posts record profits as smartphones boom

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Samsung posted a record $4.7 billion quarterly operating profit, driven by booming smartphone sales.

It said it will spend $22 billion this year to boost production of chips and flat screens to pull further ahead of smaller rivals.

The South Korean firm, the world's top technology firm by revenue, is locked in breakneck competition with Apple in the red-hot smartphone market. Apple, overtaken by Samsung in the third quarter, regained its crown as the world's biggest maker of smartphones in the fourth quarter, with record sales of 37.04 million iPhones.

Samsung didn't give its own sales volume data, but research firm Strategy Analytics put sales at 36.5 million smartphones in October-December, with 3rd-ranked Nokia on 19.6 million. Smartphones account for around 40 per cent of all Samsung's handset shipments.

Samsung's telecoms business earned a record 2.64 trillion won ($2.35 billion) profit in October-December on increased sales of its flagship Galaxy smartphones.

"The battle of the two big smartphone powers, Apple versus Samsung, will go on," said Baik Jae-yer, fund manager at Korea Investment Management, which has around 9 per cent of its portfolio in Samsung stock, according to end-September filings.

"The smartphone market will expand this year to more mid-and low-end models that are affordable to the wider public," Baik said. "Rather than focus on market share, I'd point out the strong contribution of Samsung's handset business to earnings growth and margins."

Samsung's October-December operating profit of 5.3 trillion won ($4.72 billion) was broadly in line with its earlier estimate and topped the previous record of 5 trillion won in the second quarter of 2010. Profit rose 76 per cent from a year ago and 25 per cent from the third quarter.

Samsung will increase spending this year by 9 per cent to 25 trillion won - more than the GDP of leading cocoa producer Ivory Coast - with 15 trillion won going to the chips division, 6.6 trillion won to flat screens and the rest to boosting overseas production capacity and new research and development centers.

The record investment dwarfs a combined 1.3 trillion yen ($16.6 billion) that leading Japanese technology companies - Sony Corp, Toshiba Corp, Hitachi Ltd and Sharp Corp - have planned for the current year to end-March.

Samsung competes with Sony and LG Electronics Inc in televisions, Toshiba and Hynix in chips and LG Display in displays.

LG Display posted a narrower quarterly loss on Friday on demand from smartphone and tablet makers and as falling TV panel prices stabilize.

Samsung, which only entered the smartphone market in earnest in 2010 - some three years after the introduction of the iPhone with the touchscreen template - has adopted Apple's breakthrough concept probably better than others - and now seeks to offer the Apple experience at a better price, with better functionality.

Apple is Samsung's biggest client, buying mainly chips and displays, and the two firms are locked in a bruising patent battle in some 10 countries from the United States to Europe, Japan and Australia as they jostle for smartphone and tablet supremacy. In the latest legal skirmish, a German court ruled against Samsung in the second of three patent suits. The Mannheim court will decide on a third patent on March 2.

Apple, though, is streets ahead in profitability. It generates half its revenue from the iPhone, boasts a 37.4 per cent operating margin, versus Samsung's 11 per cent, and its $17.3 billion operating profit is almost four times what Samsung earned from selling phones, chips, flat screens and TVs combined.

"Apple had good sales, but it's very unlikely this will be a trend that will overwhelm Samsung later," said Kim Young-chan, analyst at Shinhan Investment & Securities, noting the likely boost to Apple sales from year-end promotions and the death of founder Steve Jobs.

"It's unlikely Samsung and Apple will fight over each other's market share, but they will eat up the market share of smaller companies like HTC and RIM," Kim said.

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