Samsung on Tuesday announced its second quarter results, and they’re just as bad as the company’s guidance promised a few weeks ago. Samsung highlighted the slow Galaxy S9 sales as one reason that explains the drop in revenue, with display panels being also a factor. Strong demand for memory chips was not enough to offset the effects of the less than stellar Galaxy S sales.
However, the company did explain in the announcement that it plans to come out with cutting-edge mobile technology and launch new form factors.
Samsung posted revenue of 58.4 trillion won ($52.1 billion) for the period, down 4% compared to last year, and operating profit of 14.87 trillion won ($13.3 billion), which is up 6%.
The company did not say how many Galaxy S9 units it sold, but acknowledged the fact that sales were slower than the same period last year and slower than the first quarter of 2018:
Amid the stagnant high-end smartphone market, the IT & Mobile Communications Division reported a drop in earnings, both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter, over slow sales of the Galaxy S9.
Samsung also said the mobile market condition will “remain challenging” in the second half of the year amid pricing competition and new product launches, and confirmed that it’s launching the new Galaxy Note earlier as a response to that. Interestingly, Samsung said about the phone that it’ll have a reasonable price:
Samsung will seek to expand sales by introducing a new Galaxy Note earlier than usual, which offers exceptional performance for a reasonable price.
What’s more interesting in the press release, is what Samsung says about the future of its mobile division:
Looking to the future, the Company will continue to reinforce product competitiveness based on hardware leadership, by adopting cutting-edge technology and new form factors and gaining leadership in 5G.
This paragraph practically tells us the Galaxy S10 will be more exciting than ever — and that it may come with 5G support out of the gate. And it sure looks like Samsung confirmed that the launch of its first foldable smartphone is imminent. That’s what the “form factor” nod means. And make no mistake, Samsung is talking about the near future rather than a distant one given that 5G inclusion. 5G networks and smartphones are supposed to be a thing about six months from now. Not to mention that Samsung probably wants to turn things around as fast as possible and return to new record quarterly earnings.
We’ve heard talk about Samsung’s foldable smartphone for a couple of years, but Samsung kept delaying the launch. Reports in the past weeks suggested that Samsung is now set on launching the phone in early 2019. But Tuesday’s quarterly earnings report seems to make it clear that the Galaxy X — or Galaxy F — will be launched shortly. And you can thank the “boring” Galaxy S9 for that.
