Samsung released a dismal preliminary earnings report Thursday night, which market-watchers are blaming on both U.S.-China trade tensions and internal missteps.
The South Korean company reports that profits are likely down more than half of what they were at the same time last year, with an anticipated operating profit now ranging between 6.4 and 6.6 trillion KRW ($5.5 to 5.6 billion USD).
While the Trump administration’s effective ban on telecom giant Huawei left the company’s chip supply business struggling, Samsung is also wrestling with issues in its smartphone division.
The rollout of the Galaxy Fold, the new smartphone in its flagship line, was less than stellar. After reviewers reported severe flaws with the near-$2,000 device, Samsung was forced to redesign the phone and delay its launch.
"That was expensive to innovate, and it didn’t work," John Jannarone, the editor-in-chief of IPO Edge, told Cheddar.
While the company has diversified across a wide range of electronic devices and hardware, Jannarone says he has particular concerns about Samsung’s deep investments in smartphones. "Unless you're Apple, these phones are all basically interchangeable. There’s a huge glut of supply."
One bright spot in Samsung’s mobile business is that Huawei’s exclusion from the American mobile phone market could make more room for Samsung’s products.
More welcome news in early reports is an $800 million reimbursement from Apple ($AAPL), after the Cupertino-based tech giant missed previously agreed-upon sales target, according to analysts that spoke to Reuters.
In the immediate fallout from the report, Samsung share prices were trading down nearly a percent on the Korea Futures Exchange.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
