Seoul, Korea-
Samsung Electronics
On Thursday, the company's annual profit fell for the first time in three years as smartphone growth lost momentum.
2014 of the company's operating profit is expected to be about 24. 9 trillion won ($22. 6 billion)
According to preliminary figures, it was 32 lower than in 2013.
Later this month, it will announce its full financial performance, including net profit and a breakdown of the business unit.
Samsung said operating profit in the fourth quarter of last year was about 5 pounds. 2 trillion won ($4. 7 billion)
A year-on-year decline of 37 percentage points.
The results are still 4 higher than analysts expected.
According to FactSet, a financial data provider, 9 trillion won due to strong demand for memory chips.
Analysts say Samsung's smartphone business has contributed twice as much
Thirty times the profit in the past two years has continued to struggle, but improvements in the semiconductor sector have helped the company rebound from the third quarter, the worst quarter in nearly three years.
"Now is the time to see Samsung as a semiconductor company," Li said . "
Cheol, analyst at Youli Investment Securities.
In line with analysts' expectations, quarterly sales fell 52 trillion to won.
According to Lee and other analysts, Samsung's semiconductor division is developing memory chips, mobile processors and SSDs, which will generate more profits this year than Samsung's Galaxy phone.
Samsung's Galaxy smartphones were popular in 2012 and 2013, with South Korean handset makers overtaking Nokia, Motorola and Apple.
Sales volume.
But that growth stopped in 2014, in part because of the mistake of Samsung's flagship model, which had to be greatly discounted in order to maintain sales.
The company was also squeezed at low levels. and mid-
Chinese smartphone makers, such as Xiaomi, have taken over Samsung in China and India.
Samsung uses metal to bring a more refined look to smartphones and introduces curved side displays in the Galaxy Note Edge.
The company also said it would reduce models to reduce costs.
Despite these efforts, analysts said, Samsung's smartphone business is unlikely to resume its past growth momentum.
Instead, growth will come from demand for memory chips, but that growth is not enough to stop Samsung's revenue from falling again this year.
In order to develop new revenue sources other than smartphones and semiconductors, Samsung is vigorously driving the emerging industries known as the internet of things through the Internet --
Smart home and smart car.
BK Yoon, president of Samsung Electronics consumer electronics, said earlier this week that all Samsung TVs will be connected by 2017.
He also said that in five years, all Samsung hardware products will be ready for the internet of things.
The company brought its software designed to challenge Google's Android operating system to television sets.
Samsung says all of themnew Internet-
This year, connected TV will run on its own operating system, Tizen.