Profits at the world’s largest memory chip, smartphone and TV maker are expected to shrink again in the current quarter, analysts said, after Samsung announced its October-December operating profit likely fell 69% to 4.3 trillion won from 13.87 trillion won a year earlier. It was Samsung\n \n ’s smallest quarterly profit since the third quarter of 2014 and fell short of a 5.
“For the memory business, the decline in fourth-quarter demand was greater than expected as customers adjusted inventories in their effort to further tighten finances,” Samsung said in the statement. Its mobile business’ profit declined in the fourth quarter as smartphone sales and revenue decreased due to weak demand resulting from prolonged macroeconomic issues, Samsung added.