Outburst! The United States changed its words: no more restrictions
Per editor: Huang Sheng
CCTV news, local time on October 9, Choi Sang-mu, chief secretary of the South Korean presidential office, said at a press conference held at the Yongsan Presidential Palace Building in Seoul that the US government made the final decision to indefinitely exempt Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix from providing semiconductor equipment to their factories in China without other licenses.
Cui Xiangmu revealed that the United States has notified Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix and other relevant enterprises of this decision, which will take effect from today.
In response, Samsung Electronics responded to First Finance and Economics that through close coordination with relevant governments, the uncertainty of Samsung Electronics' semiconductor production line operation in China has been greatly eliminated. The company will continue to work closely with all relevant governments to maintain a stable supply chain for the global semiconductor industry.
Currently, Samsung Electronics produces NAND flash memory in Xi'an, SK Hynix produces DRAM chips in Wuxi factory, and NAND flash memory in Dalian. According to TrendForce statistics, as of the end of June, the two semiconductor manufacturers together controlled nearly 70% of the global DRAM market and 50% of the NAND flash memory market.
Image source: Daily Economic News Infographic
According to Xinhua News Agency, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. said on April 7 that it expects the company's operating profit in the first quarter of this year to fall by more than 95% year-on-year, the lowest in 14 years. Due to sluggish memory chip sales and other reasons, the company changed its previous commitment not to artificially reduce production and began to adjust short-term production.
According to preliminary estimates by Samsung Electronics, the company's operating profit from January to March this year is expected to be about 600 billion won (about 3.13 billion yuan), a year-on-year decrease of 95.75%; Sales are expected to be 63 trillion won (328.2 billion yuan), down 19% year-on-year. The company is scheduled to report its final first-quarter earnings results at the end of this month.
Samsung booth photographed at CES in Berlin, Germany, September 2, 2022. (Photo source: Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Ren Pengfei)
According to Yonhap, the last time Samsung Electronics saw quarterly operating profit fall below 1 trillion won was in the first quarter of 2009, when it was 590 billion won. The company's fourth-quarter operating profit fell nearly 70 percent year-on-year, and its first-quarter results will be worse than brokerages estimated. To make matters worse, the company expects the global chip market to shrink 6 percent year-over-year to $563 billion this year due to a sharp decline in demand, and difficult conditions could continue throughout the year.
Samsung Electronics, the world's largest memory chip maker, said in a statement that as the global economic weakness has inhibited consumer spending on electronics, demand for memory chips has declined, and most enterprise customers continue to adjust inventories to cope with the deterioration of financial conditions. Samsung Electronics "is adjusting memory chip production to meaningful levels, and we already have enough inventory to meet future demand."
Yonhap News Agency believes that the move is clearly in response to the problem of falling memory chip prices and oversupply.
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