Samsung reports its first quarterly loss (Roundup)

Seoul - Samsung Electronics Co, the leading South Korean electronics maker, posted its first quarterly loss, saying Friday that it was 20 billion won (14.59 million dollars) in the red in the final quarter of 2008. The world's largest maker of memory chips and liquid-crystal displays said the falling prices of memory chips and sinking demand for electronics during the global economic downturn was the cause for the loss after it had seen a profit of 2.21 trillion won in the same quarter a year earlier. The company also reported a 940-billion-won operating loss for 2008's fourth quarter and a 5.4-per-cent year-on-year fall in sales to 18.45 trillion won. For all of 2008, Samsung reported a net profit of 5.53 trillion won, down from 7.4 trillion won in 2007. Full-year sales rose 15 per cent to 72.9 trillion won. 'In the first quarter of 2009, a seasonally slow quarter for the industry, Samsung expects market growth to be sluggish as spending contracts due to the global downturn,' the company said. Semiconductor and display sales will be particularly affected, while its telecoms sector is still likely to grow, Samsung said. While the global handset market contracted by 5 per cent in the in the last quarter of 2008 compared with the previous quarter, it increased by 14 per cent year-on-year. Last week, Samsung reorganized its internal structure, combining its four core activities - semiconductors, LCD displays, telecommunication and digital media - in two sections instead of previously four. On Thursday, LG Electronics Inc, the country's second largest electronics company, reported record losses of 671.3 billion won for the last quarter, compared with a net profit of 621.3 billion won in the same time the previous year.