Samsung Posts a 15-Fold Increase in Operating Profits in Last Quarter 

A Samsung Group flag, right, and South Korean national flag flutter at the company's office in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP)
A Samsung Group flag, right, and South Korean national flag flutter at the company's office in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP)
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Samsung Posts a 15-Fold Increase in Operating Profits in Last Quarter 

A Samsung Group flag, right, and South Korean national flag flutter at the company's office in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP)
A Samsung Group flag, right, and South Korean national flag flutter at the company's office in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP)

Samsung Electronics Co. reported a 15-fold increase in operating profit for the second quarter this year, largely thanks to a strong demand for memory chips amid the expansion of artificial intelligence technologies.

The South Korean semiconductor and smartphone giant said Wednesday in a statement that its operating profit for the April-June quarter stood at 10.4 trillion won ($7.5 billion), up from 670 billion won reported in the same period last year.

Samsung said its consolidated revenues rose by about 23% to 74 trillion won ($53 billion). The company said favorable market conditions drove higher average sales prices, while robust sales of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels also contributed to the stronger results.

“Driven by strong demand for HBM (high bandwidth memory) as well as conventional DRAM and server SSDs (solid state drives), the memory market as a whole continued its recovery,” the Samsung release said.

“This increased demand is a result of the continued AI investments by cloud service providers and growing demand for AI from businesses for their on-premise servers,” it said.

In the second half of this year, Samsung said that AI servers are expected to take up a larger portion of the market as major cloud service providers and enterprises expand their AI investments.



Taiwan Tech Giant Foxconn’s 2024 Profit Misses Forecasts 

The logo of Foxconn is on display during the Smart City Summit & Expo pre-event press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, 11 March 2025. (EPA)
The logo of Foxconn is on display during the Smart City Summit & Expo pre-event press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, 11 March 2025. (EPA)
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Taiwan Tech Giant Foxconn’s 2024 Profit Misses Forecasts 

The logo of Foxconn is on display during the Smart City Summit & Expo pre-event press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, 11 March 2025. (EPA)
The logo of Foxconn is on display during the Smart City Summit & Expo pre-event press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, 11 March 2025. (EPA)

Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn reported on Friday a lower-than-expected net profit for 2024 as consumer electronic gadgets underperformed, although demand for its artificial intelligence servers remained robust.

The world's largest contract electronics manufacturer has been moving beyond assembling devices such as Apple's iPhones into areas ranging from electric vehicles to AI servers.

The company said full-year net profit rose seven percent to NT$152.7 billion (US$4.6 billion).

That compares with an average forecast of NT$159.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts.

Full-year revenue rose 11 percent to NT$6.9 trillion, beating the market forecast of NT$6.8 trillion.

Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, has been riding a wave of global demand for generative AI in recent years.

The company reported a "strong performance" in its AI server business, with revenue up 150 percent, according to documents released ahead of an earnings call with analysts.

This year would be the "Year of AI", the company said, with shipments increasing in every quarter.

The earnings announcement comes as US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs against major trading partners including China, Canada and Mexico, igniting trade wars and causing markets to fall.

While Foxconn has plants around the world, the bulk of its operations is based in China, which has been hit by 20 percent levies on products shipped to the United States.

Foxconn is building a mega-AI server plant in Mexico, which a local official told Bloomberg recently would be completed in a year despite Trump's tariff threats.

The $900 million assembly plant near Guadalajara will become the world's largest to be powered by Nvidia's GB200 AI chips, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus Navarro said.

Foxconn has also been in the spotlight over potential cooperation with Japanese automaker Nissan after its merger talks with rival Honda fell through in February.

Chairman Young Liu said previously that Foxconn was open to buying French auto giant Renault's stake in Nissan and was looking into a cooperation with Nissan, not a merger.

Foxconn has been looking to expand into the Japanese EV market and Liu said last month the company would announce "good news" in EVs within one or two months.