Samsung’s 2021 Profit Soars Driven By Robust Demand For Smartphones And Semiconductor Chips

Driven by surging demand for memory chip and higher margins in chip contract manufacturing, Samsung Electronic today said that it expects its operating profits to hit 13.8trn won ($11.5 billion) in the fourth-quarter, a 52% increase on the same period last year.

Sales likely rose 23% from the same period a year earlier to 76 trillion won, the company said in a short preliminary earnings release.

The company also saw its annual revenue rise 17.8 percent to 279 trillion won ($250 billion), setting a new record for the full-year revenue of 236 trillion won ($212.3 billion) in 2020.

The company's entire range of businesses, from semiconductor chips to smartphones and home appliances, have seen a surge in global demand.

Although prices of memory chips suffered a fall during the quarter, increased demand from server and data centres lifted Samsung's quarter-on-quarter shipments of both DRAM chips, widely used in data centers, and NAND flash memory chips, used for data storage in tech devices. The company's contract-based chip fabrication services have started to see a price increase.The company's flagship foldable phones -- including Galaxy Z Fold 3 and clamshell Z Flip 3 - provided a bosst to its number with

increasing signs that foldables could go mainstream in premium smartphone market across the globe. In 2021, Samsung is presumed to have sold about 8 million foldable phones, quadrupling the number of devices sold in 2020.