Gadgets
Samsung Says Q1 Profit Likely Rose Due to Sales Surge in Smartphone and TVs
Analysts said Samsung’s mobile division likely saw operating profit soar more than SKW 1 trillion (roughly Rs. 6,660 crores) to about SKW 4.15 trillion (roughly Rs. 27,630 crores) after its flagship Galaxy S21 smartphone series outsold the previous version by a two-to-one margin in the six weeks since its January launch, according to research provider Counterpoint.
A lower starting price for the flagship helped sales for the world’s largest smartphone maker during the quarter, with the S21 priced $200 (roughly Rs. 14,900) lower than the S20, Counterpoint said.
Profit in Samsung’s television set and home appliance business also likely more than doubled to around SKW 1 trillion (roughly Rs. 6,660 crores), analysts said, due to continued stay-at-home demand.
Cross-town TV and home appliance rival LG Electronics on Wednesday announced its largest-ever preliminary quarterly operating profit of SKW 1.5 trillion (roughly Rs. ,990 crores) for January-March.
In Samsung’s chip division, analysts said profit likely fell 20 percent to SKW 3.6 trillion (roughly Rs. 24,000 crores) due to the cost of ramping up domestic production as well as losses at its Texas plant following a mid-February stoppage, blunting the benefits of strong demand.
US memory chip peer Micron last month forecast third-quarter revenue above analyst estimates due to rising demand brought about by a global shift to remote work.
The price of DRAM chips widely used in laptops and other computing devices rose 5.3 percent in January-March from the previous three months, showed data from TrendForce. Analysts expect that trend to continue as a global chip shortage spurs on buyers to snap up supplies.
“Prices are likely to rise further in the current quarter due to solid demand for servers,” said analyst Park Sung-soon at Cape Investment & Securities.
Chip interest
When Samsung announces detailed earnings later this month, “there will be interest in finding out how much Samsung is struggling in terms of low yields in its non-memory business, in addition to the extent of the losses in Texas and the US pressure to increase chip investment,” Park said, referring to the number of non-memory chips that pass quality tests.
Analysts have estimated that Samsung will invest about SKW 10 trillion (roughly Rs. 66,560 crores) in its chip contract manufacturing business this year, compared to about SKW 6 trillion (roughly Rs. 39,970 crores) last year.
Two top White House aides are set to host a meeting on April 12 with chipmakers and automakers in attendance on the state of the US supply chain, Reuters previously reported. Samsung is considering a new $17 billion (roughly Rs. 126,450 crores) chip plant in the United States.
Samsung also said, in a preliminary earnings release without offering any breakdown of the figures, that revenue likely rose 17 percent from the same period a year prior to SKW 65 trillion (roughly Rs. 4,32,990 crores).
Its share price traded down 0.2 percent after the release versus a 0.2 percent rise in the benchmark KOSPI. The stock has risen about 6.2 percent so far this year versus the KOSPI’s 8.8 percent.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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