Samsung’s earnings report for the third quarter of 2015 reveals that its sales have reached $45.1 billion which is a 9 percent increase from what it has achieved for the same period of past year.
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This topped market expectations of about 6.5 trillion won, and slightly exceeded the company’s preliminary earnings guidance of 7.3 trillion won.
The mobile division posted its first on-year profit growth in two years, climbing 37 percent to 2.4 trillion won, thanks to strong sales of the Galaxy Note 5 as well as new lower-end products.
By sector, the battery business posted sales of 886.8 billion won, up 13.7 percent from a quarter earlier.
The higher sales came largely from strong demand for Samsung’s chips and flat-panel displays, which account for more than a third of its total business, while profits were helped by the weak Korean won. The company has promised to return between 30 and 50 percent of its annual free cash flow to shareholders over the next three years. The company’s phone business has suffered from increased competition from Apple, which adopted the phablet format pioneered by Samsung past year.
The mobile unit will focus on maintaining a profit level similar to the previous quarter by expanding sales for each price segment that were introduced in the third quarter, and by continuously improving cost efficiency, the company said. Samsung builds a few of the A9 chips supplied for the new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, and it also makes the Apple A7 chips used in the lower-end iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and iPad Mini 2.
For the mobile division, it was Samsung’s first year-over-year profit gain since 2013, when it was at its peak of smartphone dominance.
Samsung’s stock price surged as much as 4 percent after it announced a plan to increase shareholder returns, including buying back and cancelling $10 billion (roughly Rs. 65,203 crores) worth of stock.
Samsung said capital expenditure would rise to 27 trillion won this year as the company invests in chips and display plants.
Xiaomi shipped 18.5 million smartphones over the same quarter, so far shipping 53.2 million handsets for the year as of September 30.
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Apple and Samsung account for 87 percent of the market share for smartphones sold in the United States under post-paid plans by telecom service providers.
