Samsung’s chip division posted a loss of 4.58 trillion won during the first quarter, the division’s first loss in 14 years.
The South Korean tech company said on Thursday that it posted 63.75 trillion won in revenue and 640 billion won in operating income, a drop of 18.75% and 95.47%, respectively, from the prior year.
Samsung said global economic uncertainties and the sluggish market situation has caused consumer demand to slow down.
The company’s chip division recorded 13.73 trillion won in revenue and 4.58 trillion won in operating income.
Revenue was halved from last year while operating profit turned to the red from 8.45 trillion won in operating income recorded last year.
Samsung said demand for DRAM in servers was weak while those for NAND were high from high demand for higher-capacity products.
Samsung System SLI, its logic chip division, saw demand for chips from smartphones and TV contracted during the quarter as well.
Samsung said weak demand for chips was expected to continue to the second quarter.
But an upturn was expected for the second half of the year, and Samsung was planning to focus on high-end products such as DDR5 and LPDDR5x. The company will also focus on gate-all-around 2-nanometer technology for foundry, it said.
