SEOUL, South Korea: — Samsung Electronics on Thursday said progress on a main supply deal for synthetic intelligence-targeted chips, aiming to reassure investors following a slowdown in semiconductor earnings during the last sector. The South Korean era large said its running earnings for the July-September period accelerated with the aid of greater than 277% from a year in advance to nine.18 trillion gained ($6.65 billion). But the determine represented a 12% decline from the second quarter, which Samsung attributed largely to 1-off costs, along with provision of worker incentives in its computer chip business, and the consequences of a weaker U.S. Greenback. Samsung’s semiconductor department earned three.86 trillion gained ($2.8 billion) in operating profit at some point of the sector, rebounding from a deficit all through 2023 however sharply declining from the 6.45 trillion received ($4.67 billion) it reported in the April-June period. While Samsung saw solid demand for AI and server chips for the duration of the past quarter, its cellular chip enterprise weakened as some customers adjusted inventories. The marketplace changed into additionally suffering from Chinese manufacturers’ elevated supply of legacy reminiscence merchandise, the business enterprise stated in a declaration. More seriously, Samsung lagged at the back of key competitors consisting of SK Hynix in HBM3E, the modern technology of high bandwidth reminiscence chips which can be used to strength AI packages. During a conference call, Samsung Executive Vice President Jaejune Kim said the agency currently made a “significant advance” in a qualification test procedure to offer its HBM3E merchandise to an unspecified “major purchaser,” a improvement he said may want to likely drive up income at some stage in the fourth quarter. Kim’s feedback touched off speculation that Samsung changed into final in on a supply address Nvidia, a chief U.S. Maker that designs advanced chips powering AI. “In the fourth quarter, whilst reminiscence demand for cellular and PC may come across softness, boom in AI will preserve demand at sturdy ranges. Against this backdrop, the agency will focus on using sales of high-bandwidth reminiscence and excessive-density merchandise,” Samsung stated.
