SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – Samsung Electronics suffered a fifth straight drop in quarterly earnings as the Galaxy S6 failed to reverse its declining fortunes in global smartphone sales.
The company’s overall earnings drop during the April-June quarter was 8 percent but it reported a much bigger decline of 38 percent in the mobile division’s income. The sharp profit drop in the mobile business came despite its ambitious start to the quarter with the launch of two flagship smartphones: the Galaxy S6 and the S6 Edge featuring a curved side display.
“Total sales of the S6 and S6 Edge during the second quarter were below expectations,” Park Jinyoung, a vice president at Samsung’s mobile communications team, said on a conference call Thursday.
The decline in the mobile profit was smaller than the previous quarter’s nearly 60 percent plunge, but it extended the mobile division’s losing streak. Samsung’s sky-high growth in the smartphone industry came to a sudden stop in 2013 as bigger iPhone models lured buyers from Samsung phones and Chinese phone makers squeezed its sales in China.
Samsung’s April-June net income was 5.8 trillion won ($5 billion), down 8 percent from 6.3 trillion won a year earlier. A FactSet survey of analysts predicted 5.6 trillion won of net income.