Samsung said it expects its results for the first quarter to come in below market expectations due to worse-than-expected business conditions in the display and memory industries. The company had already warned for lower earnings in Q1 on weaker performance at its memory chip business. Demand for memory products and OLED panels was expected to pick up from the second half of the year.
To help counter the difficult business conditions, Samsung said it will in the short term strengthen product differentiation and shore up its cost competitiveness via efficient resource management. In the medium to long term, the company will continue to boost the competitiveness of its major businesses while securing sustained growth via strategic investments in R&D and new businesses, among other measures.
Samsung said price declines at its LCD business were sharper than expected in Q1 due to an increase in supply from Chinese companies, which upped their capacity. Profit from the company’s OLED business suffered meanwhile from a decline in demand for flexible products from large customers and intense price competition with LTPS LCD panels. At Memory, prices will go lower than forecast amid the seasonally weak demand.
