What just happened? After warning to expect the worst, Samsung has issued its first-quarter earnings report for 2019. As expected, the news isn't good. The Korean giant's profits were down 60 percent compared to the same period last year, mostly due to the falling demand and price of its memory chips.
In late March, Samsung took the unprecedented step of issuing a warning before releasing its first-quarter earnings guidance. In addition to the declining profitability of its chip business, falling demand for its displays has also had an effect.
Overall, Samsung's operating profit for the quarter was at 6.2 trillion won ($5.3 billion), down from 15.64 trillion won ($13.4 billion) a year earlier. Revenue for the period was down 13 percent YoY to 52.4 trillion won (around $44 billion).
Samsung did say that its Galaxy S10 phones sold well during the quarter. No exact figures for the models were given, though it did reveal that a total of 78 million of its phones were sold during the first three months of the year. But this wasn't enough to offset the other declines.
"First quarter earnings were weighed down by the weakness in memory chips and displays, although the newly launched Galaxy S10 smartphone logged solid sales," said the company, in a statement.
Samsung's bottom line is expected to improve. The firm said it would "strengthen its product lineup through innovations such as Galaxy S10 5G and Galaxy A80 and continued reorganization of its product offerings." The Galaxy Note 10 and eventual (hopefully) release of the Galaxy Fold should also see an uptick in its business. And while prices are predicted to keep falling, Samsung expects to see a slight improvement in the memory chip market.