Samsung's operating profit shows little movement

Samsung said it expects its companywide operating profit to remain relatively flat year-over-year. The company is scheduled to report second-quarter results later this month.

The earnings guidance, the first-ever provided by Samsung, is an effort by the company to provide clarity to investors. "Samsung believes that growing interest in the company's quarterly earnings and competing forecasts have led to more confusion in the market ahead of the recent earnings release announcements," the company said, according to the Associated Press.

In the second quarter, Samsung expects to report an operating profit of between $1.7 billion and $2 billion,  up from the previous quarter but largely in-line with what Samsung posted in the same quarter a year ago. The company did not provide estimates for its mobile phone business.

In the first quarter, Samsung said its company-wide net profit slumped 72 percent in the first quarter amid slowing demand for memory chips and other electronic gizmos. However, the firm's handset shipments remained relatively flat year-over-year, and its average selling prices for handsets rose slightly--by 2 percent--over the previous quarter.

Samsung's share of the global cell phone market topped 18 percent in the first quarter, up from around 16 percent in the same quarter a year ago.

For more:
- see this article [1]
- see this article [2]
- see this release [3]

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Nokia sees Q1 profit drop 90%, reaffirms handset forecast [6]