News: 0175210933

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Samsung Apologizes For Making Just $6.8 Billion Last Quarter

(Tuesday October 08, 2024 @05:20PM (msmash) from the tough-luck dept.)


Samsung has [1]issued a rare apology after saying it expected to post just $6.78 billion in operating profit for the most recent quarter, about $900 million short of analyst expectations. From a report:

> "We have caused concerns about our fundamental technological competitiveness and the future of the company due to our performance falling short of the market's expectations," reads the statement attributed to Samsung Vice Chairman Jun Young-hyun. "Many people are talking about Samsung's crisis. We, who are leading the business, are responsible for all of this."

Bloomberg [2]adds :

> In another filing, Korea's largest company confessed to delays in delivering a key type of chip used with Nvidia processors for training AI -- allowing SK Hynix to dominate the so-called high-bandwidth memory arena. Apart from lagging SK Hynix in HBM, it's also shown little progress against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in the outsourced production of custom-made chips. Samsung warned about "inventory adjustments" by unspecified customers, as well as increasing competition from a legacy or less-advanced Chinese memory chipmaker.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/8/24265018/samsung-profit-apology-ai-memory-chips

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-07/samsung-results-disappoint-as-ai-chip-gap-with-rivals-persists


Sony (Score:4, Interesting)

by timeOday ( 582209 )

Does anybody remember what a powerhouse Sony was in the 80's? All the cyberpunk movies assumed Sony would loom large in the future cityscape. Then they missed a few waves of technology and lost most of their prominence. They still exist but their share price still hasn't recaptured its Feb 2000 peak.

Re: (Score:1)

by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 )

I'm old enough to remember and I've been a Sony fan from way back. I miss their industrial design, despite all the times they've embraced proprietary formats (Elcaset, Beta, MemoryStick, MD, ATRAC, HiFD, UMD, etc..). Their PictureBook laptops and some other VAIO systems expressed it quite well along with all the cool portable music and recording devices they've created. Today it's still echoed in PlayStation gear, but not as strong or vibrant as it used to be.

I want more jog-dials, more yellow headphone

Re: (Score:2)

by wyHunter ( 4241347 )

Indeed. I really wanted a walkman in highschool but couldn't afford it. I did buy an ICF-2010 though...in the late 80s. I still have and use it.

Good example (Score:3)

by JustNiz ( 692889 )

I'm now looking forward to all American CEOs following suit and apologising for their own poor performances when they only make 7 billiion in profit.

Re: (Score:2)

by hdyoung ( 5182939 )

Not a chance in hell any US CEO will ever publicly apologize, and the same goes for our politicians. Its a cultural thing. At a population level, we absolutely hate to hear public figures make an apology. In general, our response is less "oh they took responsibility like a man" and more "that POS they just confirmed they did something wrong let's tar and feather 'em".

It's totally different at the personal level, where an apology can go a long way to fixing a mistake, The US court system is different too

Re: (Score:2)

by Retired Chemist ( 5039029 )

If any of them actually meant the apology, it might matter. The art of apologizing without regrets has become a world standard.

Re:Good example [of a bad company] (Score:2)

by shanen ( 462549 )

Mod parent up, though I'm not sure which way. Funny not funny?

I think Samsung should apologize for the gawdawful support. Most recently my Galaxy phone started acting in a peculiar way, but I have no idea how peculiar it is. The new behavior actually relates to the compass feature, which goes back to old questions Galaxy refused to answer when I first bought the phone. But why would Samsung now enable a capability that they disabled? Inquiring minds will never find out from Samsung.

But it is a "shame on me"

Re: (Score:2)

by smooth wombat ( 796938 )

I'm now looking forward to all American CEOs following suit and apologising for their own poor performances

I'm waiting (forever) for an American CEO to follow suit and apologize for having to raise their prices like [1]these [japantoday.com] [2]Japanese [kotaku.com] [3]companies [yahoo.com] did. The second company even put out [4]a commercial [youtube.com] showing them all apologizing for increasing the price by 9 cents.

[1] https://japantoday.com/category/business/japanese-candy-company-make-tearful-heartfelt-apology-for-raising-their-prices%E2%80%A6-by-%C2%A510

[2] https://kotaku.com/japanese-company-apologies-for-9-cent-price-increase-1768856245

[3] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/japanese-snack-company-apologizes-0-194415480.html

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76NyvWcAeO4

Re: (Score:2)

by nightflameauto ( 6607976 )

> I'm now looking forward to all American CEOs following suit and apologising for their own poor performances when they only make 7 billiion in profit.

We've heard plenty of "apologies" from American CEOs. They typically follow the formula of, "I'm really sorry our customers are assholes," or "I'm sorry, but..." with a long list of reasons they were way beyond justified in doing something completely shitty.

Shareholder Greed vs. The Market. (Score:2)

by geekmux ( 1040042 )

> ”We have caused concerns about our fundamental technological competitiveness and the future of the company due to our performance falling short of the market's expectations,"

Oh shut the fuck up about the “market” already. This is shareholders demanding blood from the stone we call not-a-recession. Face the damn facts and stop apologizing for Greeds bullshit, and consider yourself lucky if you only felt a minor impact on your billions in profit.

Humble bragging? (Score:2)

by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 )

We should have done *so* much better, $7 billion isn't even *close* to what we can do!

Tell analysts to suck a dick. (Score:2)

by Eunomion ( 8640039 )

Expectations are not real. A dollar of profit is still a profit. Two dollars of profit is twice as good, not somehow half because some douche said you were "supposed" to make four.

What kind of entitled, born-rich, greed-monkey world spawns people who treat a massive profit as a loss because someone who has nothing to do with the operation of their business thought they would make more?

Save your "expectations" for customer satisfaction surveys at a hotel. Productive enterprise can only address itsel

i believe the... (Score:2)

by ole_timer ( 4293573 )

...apology is for missing the guidance by nearly a billion...

Re: (Score:2)

by Oddroot ( 4245189 )

> ...apology is for missing the guidance by nearly a billion...

Indeed, where if I were running Samsung unless there was some specific failure, I'd think it would be a better tack to instead point out that the guidance was so far off and that obviously the speculators aren't competent. Samsung made money, plenty of money, nothing to apologize for, they have no control over nitwits who invest based on "expert" analysis that is often wrong.

We should all want companies to be profitable (Score:2)

by FeelGood314 ( 2516288 )

More profit means higher dividends paid back to investors. Now I understand that everyone under 30 is f#@ked by current government policies but "assuming" that were to change, then younger people will need ways of saving for retirement. The current system for paying for retirement is a giant pyramid scheme of limited housing supply driving up house prices and inflated asset prices due to low inflation and no real good alternative than the stock market. But ignoring all that, young people will need stocks

And apologize for making refrigs that last on 5 y? (Score:2)

by sinkskinkshrieks ( 6952954 )

I think they've over-optimized for planned obsolescence and privacy invasion such that they've alienated a sizable fraction of their potential and former customers. "Fool me once..."

But They Didn't for the #GSOD (Score:2)

by AncalagonTotof ( 1025748 )

Yes, I never miss an opportunity to [1]remind @samsung about the #GSOD [youtube.com]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kWEhx8cpwg

Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat?
A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.

Q: How long does it take?
A: It's indeterminate.
It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them.

Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats?
A: They replace your generator.