[더파워 이경호 기자] Samsung Electronics reported a significant earnings miss for the second quarter of 2025, with an operating profit of KRW 4.6 trillion—well below market expectations. Prolonged weakness in the semiconductor business, compounded by inventory-related write-downs, weighed heavily on the company’s performance.
On July 8, Samsung announced its preliminary consolidated earnings for the April–June period, revealing that operating profit fell 55.9% year-on-year and 31.2% quarter-on-quarter. The figure is 23.4% lower than the market consensus of KRW 6.0069 trillion compiled by financial data provider Yonhap Infomax. This marks the lowest quarterly profit since Q4 2023 and the weakest second-quarter performance in two years.
Revenue for the quarter stood at KRW 74 trillion, representing a 0.09% decline from the same period last year and a 6.49% drop from the previous quarter.
The primary drag on performance was the Device Solutions (DS) division. Samsung explained that DS earnings declined due to inventory-related provisions and the impact of U.S. export restrictions on advanced AI chips destined for China. While shipments of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) products increased, they were not sufficient to offset one-off losses such as inventory write-downs in the memory segment.
Non-memory chip operations also struggled, as U.S. export restrictions to China limited sales and led to excess inventory. Reduced fab utilization further strained profitability in this segment.
The Mobile eXperience (MX) division, which led strong earnings in Q1, saw a seasonal downturn as the initial impact of new Galaxy device launches faded. The TV and home appliance segments were also hampered by weak global demand, intensifying competition, and tariff pressures.
Despite the disappointing results, market analysts expect Samsung’s earnings to rebound in the second half of the year, driven primarily by memory semiconductors. Key catalysts include the ramp-up of HBM3E shipments, a rebound in DRAM prices, and the acquisition of new customers in the foundry business.
Roh-Kho Kim, an analyst at Hana Securities, noted, “The memory market is seeing improving supply-demand dynamics, with both shipments and pricing trending upward. Samsung’s second-half performance is likely to show a clear recovery centered on the memory segment.”
이경호 더파워 기자 lkh@thepowernews.co.kr
