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Technology Stocks : Samsung and Wireless -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric L who wrote (76)	10/18/2002 5:40:19 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 374

Samsung lifted by mobile phone demand By Andrew Ward in Seoul Published: October 18 2002 8:02 \| Last Updated: October 18 2002 8:02 Samsung Electronics, South Korea's largest company, said on Friday that its third-quarter net profits quadrupled from the same period last year, driven by strong growth in mobile phone sales. However, net profits were slightly lower than in the second quarter because of weak semiconductor prices and continued sluggishness in the wider information technology market. Shares in Samsung rose nearly 7 per cent in afternoon trading to Won329,500 as investors focused on the company's bullish forecast of a better fourth quarter and a recovery in chip prices next year. "We hope that things will improve a bit in the fourth quarter but because of our company-specific competitiveness we are confident that we will be able to maintain good results regardless of the external environment," said Chu Woosik, head of investor relations. "We are conservative in our outlook for next year but at some point during the year we hope to see a pick-up." Third-quarter net profit was Won1,730bn ($1.39bn), compared with Won420bn a year ago and Won1,920bn in the second-quarter. Sales were Won9,920bn, up 7.2 per cent from last year but down from Won9,940bn in the previous quarter. The results were in line with analysts' expectations. Sales of handsets rose to Won2,920bn - up 23.7 per cent from the second-quarter - representing about 11m phones. Samsung expects to sell 12m in the fourth quarter taking the year's total above 41m. The strong performance of the handset division underlined Samsung's status as the world's fastest-growing mobile-phone maker, having risen to third-place in the global market, measured by sales, behind Nokia and Motorola. Samsung has invested heavily in technology, design and branding, establishing itself as a leader in advanced colour screen handsets. Samsung was the world's fastest-growing brand last year, ahead of Nivea and Starbucks. The memory division increased sales by 5 per cent from the second-quarter to Won1,960bn, despite the slump in prices for dynamic random access memory (D-Ram), the most common type of memory chip used in personal computers. The resilience of Samsung's chip operation was explained by its diversification out of commodity D-Ram chips into more sophisticated products, such as Ram-flash and S-Ram. Samsung is the world's largest producer of memory chips.